


Blood and Tears

by Lakritzwolf



Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Abduction, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Asphyxiation, Crude field surgery, Hallucinations, Head Shaving, Hostage Situations, Humiliation, Hurt/Comfort, Isolation, M/M, PTSD, catatonic state, more tags to come
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-11
Updated: 2019-10-29
Packaged: 2020-12-09 10:49:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 14
Words: 24,744
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20993567
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lakritzwolf/pseuds/Lakritzwolf
Summary: A simple rescue mission turned out to be a trap, and with Lorenzo suddenly incapacitated, Andrew gets dragged into a portal.  Now Lorenzo has to find a way to get him back, yet it is not Andrew, but Lorenzo himself the kidnappers are after. Lorenzo might not have a choice anymore to pay the horrible ransom they demand, because they know what they are doing, and Andrew is running out of time.





	1. Dragged Away

**Author's Note:**

> This was supposed to be a Whumptober thing, but I am dropping the Whumptober, because finding inspiration is very difficult without a plot. Apparently I can only make characters suffer if there's a greater purpose behind it, as I had no problems finding something for the fills regarding the plot bunnies. So this is now a story, containing those prompts that I can use, while the others will have to be put to rest. The chapter titles are the respective prompts.

“Looks like the thing about warlock children out here was a false alarm.” Andrew looked around in the dim light of the shack, but the layers of dust on the floor and every other surface hadn’t been disturbed in a very long time.

“Either that, or we’re too late,” Isabelle said as he closed the door again. “Though it doesn’t look as if anyone’s been here for ages.

“Unless the dust is a glamour,” Lorenzo said, his face tightening. He was scanning the building and the door with magic. “I can detect traces of magic.”

“And that means?” Isabelle’s bracelet uncoiled into the whip, resting in her hand ready to strike. 

“It means this is likely a trap.” Lorenzo lowered his voice. 

“A trap for whom?” Isabelle asked in a whisper. 

“You, Head of the Institute,” Lorenzo whispered. “Me, High Warlock of Brooklyn. Or just a warlock, or a few Shadowhunters, or both.”

Andrew and another Shadowhunter of the strike team now positioned themselves next to the door on either side, and Lorenzo readied his magic. 

“I’m going to blast that door, but don’t step inside before I say so,” Lorenzo said, stepping closer. 

The two nodded, hefting their blades, and Lorenzo took a deep breath and shot out a burst of magic that obliterated the door. Magic dancing around his hands he carefully stepped towards the doorframe, and sent a few tendrils of golden light into the room ahead. The crept along the floor and over furniture, scanned the windows and the other door at the back of the room. 

“No magic here,” Lorenzo said in a low voice. 

“Underhill, Whitestone, guard the door.” Isabelle picked up the tip of her whip so it wouldn’t trail in the dust. “The rest, with me.”

Side by side Lorenzo and Isabelle crossed the room, all senses trained on their surroundings. Behind them were three more Shadowhunters, with Andrew and Whitestone guarding the door. 

Lorenzo had reached the door now and activated his magic, while Isabelle reached for the door handle. They exchanged a look, Lorenzo nodded, and Isabelle slowly closed her fingers around the handle, then threw the door open while immediately jumping back. 

An explosion of white light and red powder shot out of the door with a burst of acrid stink. The Shadowhunters hit by the cloud gasped and coughed, but Lorenzo staggered backwards with a scream. The light of magic around his hands flickered and went out like a broken light bulb. 

He fell to his knees with a groan, but before Andrew could reach him, something snapped around his ankles in a painfully hard grip and jerked him backwards. A rope, a magic rope, or a rope made of magic, but it didn’t make any difference. Andrew fell flat onto his stomach, and had just about the time to let go of his blade so he could avoid his face smashing into the wooden stairs. 

By the time Lorenzo had, with Isabelle’s help, staggered onto his feet again Andrew was already being dragged backwards, towards a portal that lit up the murky twilight around them with an unpleasant, reddish glow. Andrew struggled against the pull, but it happened too fast. His fingers left scrapes in the leaf-covered dirt, but it didn’t even slow him down.

“LORENZO!!”

Unable to summon his magic, hardly able to keep himself upright, Lorenzo stared helplessly how Andrew was dragged towards the portal. The Shadowhunters who had sprung into action when they had seen Andrew fall couldn’t reach him even with their Nephilim speed, and the portal snapped shut.

And Andrew was gone.


	2. Isolation

Before Andrew could recover he felt the portal snap around him, and moments later he found himself in darkness on stone floor, in what seemed to be a dimly lit cave. The rope was still wound around his ankles, and another now wound tightly around his midriff, immobilising his arms. 

“Did we get the right one?”

“The blonde one, yeah. Here’s the picture.”

“It’s him, all right. Good job.”

So far, three different voices, three different men. But Andrew could hardly move, and he had lost his sword. The blade in his thigh holster was just there, and he could almost touch it with his fingertips, but with the coil of magic tying him down, there was nothing he could do right now. 

“Store him in the safe room. They can’t track him in there. And remember to knock him out. There’s no telling what those fucking Shadowhunters have up their sleeves.”

It wasn’t a bat or a fist but magic, hardly more than a slap across the face, but it made Andrew’s head spin. His vision blurred, and his arms and legs went limp without him being able to control it. He was searched, disarmed, and his stele was broken in half before it was tossed away.

Two men now grabbed Andrew’s upper arms and hauled him upright, but instead of freeing his legs they just dragged him across the stone floor. 

Then he was dropped again, and he could hear a heavy door fall shut. 

The magic tying him down vanished, but his head was still spinning, and he felt as if he was about to heave. Little by little his mind cleared again, and he got control over his limbs back as well. 

Only, it didn’t seem to matter. He was trapped in a room without a shred of light, and he had no idea where he was. He carefully got up and stretched out his arms, but couldn’t feel the ceiling. After rolling his shoulders, Andrew carefully started walking until he found the wall, and walked along that until he found the door. From there on he continued following the walls until he found the door again. 

His estimate was a rectangular room of about five by four meters. The walls felt like stone, the door was metal, and the floor was stone as well, but irregular. It seemed to be a cave of some sort, so wherever he was, he was below ground. 

And apparently, he was also in a safe room, a room shielded by magic, so he couldn’t be tracked. For a moment, Andrew had to bite back a surge of panic. He was Angel knows where, shielded from tracking, in a cell, alone, and in pitch black darkness. 

He slowly sat down with the wall at his back, and pulled up his knees. The silence around him was absolute; the only things he could hear were his own breathing, his heartbeat, the rustling of his clothes when he moved. 

There was nothing and no one here besides him. 

Time quickly lost all meaning. He was cold, and his mind was spinning in seven different directions trying to figure out why he was here and what they wanted with him. And if there was a way Lorenzo and the others might find him. 

How long had he been in here anyway? 

He knew they had seen how he had been dragged into the portal. So they should be looking for him, right?

They wouldn’t give up on him. Especially Lorenzo would never give up on him. He wouldn’t leave a stone unturned to find him. 

But what if he couldn’t?

Andrew got up again and felt his way along the wall until he found the door again. 

“Hey!” He banged on the door. “HEY!”

Nothing. 

“What do you want with me?!”

Absolute silence. 

Andrew kicked the door with a frustrated growl and walked across the room again, away from the door, and sank down the wall until he hit the ground. He pulled up his knees again and stared straight ahead into the darkness.


	3. Stab Wound

Andrew knew how much being locked up in isolation and darkness could mess with your mind, so he tried to stay calm about it. It was easier thought than done though, and there was nothing to battle the nerve-grating silence with apart from his own thoughts. 

How long had he been here now? He was freezing, and thirsty, so it would be a few hours. Was it night time already? And why did that thought even matter?

He almost jumped out of his skin when he heard the sound, muffled voices coming through the door. He got up onto his feet, and realised his legs had gone almost numb. Trying to get rid of the pins and needles he stomped his feet a few times, every muscle tensing under his skin. 

The sound of a key being turned. The sound of a metal bolt sliding aside. 

A shaft of light that hurt Andrew’s eyes as the door opened a crack. 

But Andrew didn’t waste any time in wondering if they were armed, if they were warlocks, or how he would ever get out of here, wherever that was. He just pushed himself off the wall and careened into the first man stepping into the door at full speed. 

“Fuck!”

Andrew was at a real disadvantage here due to his eyes being oversensitive to the light, but he ignored the sting and forced his eyes to stay open as he tried to overcome the man before him. He had him already pushed against the wall, slammed him into the wall again for good measure, but he wasn’t alone. 

“Fucking Shadowhunter!”

“Don’t kill him!”

Andrew let go of the man in front of him to spin around, and barely dodged the swing of a blade. The one he had smashed into the wall now staggered away so he couldn’t use him as a shield, and the blade came for him again. 

In a strange, crystal-clear awareness Andrew watched the blade as if it was coming at him in slow-motion, and he knew without a shred of doubt that he couldn’t evade that blow. His eyes followed the curve of the blade, watched it connect with his thigh. Feeling strangely numb, he analysed the cut and knew that it wasn’t lethal, but it would bleed like hell. Also, it should hurt. Why didn’t it hurt?

He snapped back into time at that moment, as the blade bit deeper into his thigh. His whole leg exploded in a burst of fiery pain and gave way under him, and the pain got even worse as he fell over, and the blade was torn out of the wound again. Andrew collapsed with a growl of pain, and slipped in his own blood as he tried to get onto his feet again. 

“Idiot! I told you not to kill him!”

“I didn’t! I only stabbed him!”

“He’ll be bleeding to death, you lobotomite! Give me your belt!”

A kick to his chest sent Andrew tumbling onto his back, and the pain was so intense for a moment he was hardly able to breathe, lest even move. He could feel one of the men sling something around his thigh above the wound, but when he pulled it tight Andrew couldn’t suppress a scream of pain. 

“Great! You are going to carry him, you stupid ass!”

Andrew was already dizzy with pain, and it got even worse as someone grabbed his arm and shoulder. The pain was so intense that he couldn’t do more than gasp as he was hauled onto someone’s back, and he helplessly watched as he was carried in a fireman’s hold on the man’s shoulders how he left a trail of red droplets behind.


	4. Shackled

With his mind swimming in and out of consciousness, Andrew was unable to tell where they were going, even though it was unlikely he would have been able to memorise the way through this dark maze even fully aware of his surroundings. 

Another door opened, into another large room, and another man was waiting there. 

“What... for the love of god! What have you done?!”

“He tried to attack us! He went at Hopkins and almost knocked him out!”

“And so you decided to slice up his leg?

“I had to stop him, didn’t I?”

An angry huff. “Get me some bandages from that first aid kit. Maybe that’ll do it. In the meantime, put him there and tie him properly down.”

‘There’ turned out to be a chair, placed in the middle of the room. Trying to not let his mind slip Andrew forced himself to look around, but this room looked like his prison cell had felt, stone walls, stone floor, stone ceiling, only much larger. One of his captors snapped a manacle around his left wrist and painfully pulled his arms back, and shackled his wrists together behind the back of the chair. His right leg was on fire and he knew that he felt so lightheaded because of blood loss, and he dimly wondered if he even could make it out of here alive. It didn’t seem likely.

His left ankle was now shackled as well, the chain wound around the leg of the chair, but the other ankle was left free for now. Another of his captors now proceeded to cut his trouser leg off so he could bandage the wound, but blood seeped through the bandages within moments. 

“Stop moving so much,” he said as he pulled it tight, making Andrew hiss in pain. “We need you alive.”

“Knowing that he’d die just to spite you,” another said with a coarse, unpleasant chuckle. “Be careful with that leg when you tie him down.”

Another shackle to his right ankle, wound again around the leg of the chair, and he was now effectively immobilised. Maybe the fact that they needed him alive should be comforting somehow, but there was no telling what exactly they planned to do with him. Maybe bleeding to death would be the better alternative, but shackled down like this he couldn’t even move the leg. There was no wriggling the bandage or the tourniquet loose. 

He fought another surge of panic when he saw the collar, but he didn’t even have time to protest before it snapped shut around his neck. The chain attached to it was wound through the one holding his arms together, and then fastened with a heavy lock to the chain between his ankles.

Nephilim or no, even with all of his runes activated he would not have been able to get out of that. 

Andrew could see his three captors, but the fourth remained hidden in the shadows, no more than a faint outline. 

“What do you want with me?” he rasped, knowing full well he would not like the answer. If they even deigned to give him one. 

“I’d suggest you hold your tongue, or I’ll have you gagged as well,” the man in the shadows said. “But you know what, just gag him already. I hate repeating myself.”

It was as simple as it was crude, and very effective. Just a strip of duct tape. It was all that it took.

“You think Rey’s going to take the bait?”

Andrew’s blood turned to ice in his veins.

“Only one way to find out,” the man in the shadows said with a cruel edge to his voice. 

They left him alone and in darkness again, shackled and in pain this time. He was nothing more than bait. And the thought that Lorenzo would leave no stone unturned to find him turned from comforting into terrifying within a handful of heartbeats.


	5. Stitches

At least this time, being alone and in darkness wasn’t the only sensation. Andrew didn’t know if being able to focus on something else was really helpful if that something was excruciating pain and a burning thirst, but there wasn’t anything he could do about it anyway.

He felt his head nod forward a few times, feeling slightly dizzy and lightheaded. It probably had to do with the fact that he could feel his blood trickling down his leg, warm and sticky, and though it wasn’t much, eventually the blood loss would kill him. The wound was deep, and while Andrew really didn’t want to die, being dead meant he couldn’t be used as a bait for Lorenzo anymore.

Not one of the easiest things to take comfort in.

His head dropped forward again, and he would have stopped struggling, but the fact that his mouth was taped shut made breathing through his nose like that difficult. And making himself stop breathing wasn’t something he was ready to try just yet.

He didn’t have a clue how long he had been there before the door opened again, and this time he just closed his eyes against the sting of light.

“Damn, I fucking told you so.”

“I see that, yes, but I didn’t do that on purpose. I only wanted to incapacitate him, how was I supposed to know he’d jump into the blade like that?”

“He’s bleeding to death. I get the warlock.”

“Hey.” A hand slapped his cheek, though it wasn’t hard enough to sting. “Hey! Eyes on me!”

Andrew forced his eyes open and blinked against the light.

“Where’s your healing rune?”

Andrew couldn’t reply, and was wondering how on earth his captor could be so thick not to notice that. But at that moment he did, and picked at a corner of the duct tape. It was a burst of pain on his skin, and Andrew was sure his lips were bleeding now from a few cracks.

“Where’s your healing rune?” he asked again.

“Unless you have a spare stele it’s not going to be of use,” Andrew replied, voice hoarse from thirst and disuse. “You broke mine.”

“Ah, fuck.”

The door opened again.

“He said he’s not going to waste magic on him. You gotta fix him.”

“Sure. Just because I was a field medic ten years ago he thinks I can still do that sort of shit?”

“You’d better, because I wouldn’t want to be in your skin when that one checks out. Here, he’s magicked up some medical supplies for you.”

“Fucking arrogant asshole.”

The bag of medical supplies contained everything needed for impromptu field surgery, as far as Andrew could tell. Apart from anaesthetics. He closed his eyes, and prayed to the Angel to give him strength.

“At least we don’t have to tie him down.”

“Yeah, but put the duct tape back. Don’t wanna listen to him whine.”

Andrew eyed the man who tore off another strip of duct tape. “Can I please have some water?” He knew he shouldn’t have bothered, but at this point he was desperate enough to try.

His question was completely ignored, and the duct tape slapped across his lips again.

The other one had in the meantime threaded a suture needle. Andrew could only silently shake his head, but neither of the two cared. Thanks to the duct tape he couldn’t scream, but he nearly passed out from the agony of having a generous amount of alcohol disinfectant poured over the wound.

He could feel every single stitch, the needle biting into his skin, in and out, the thread being pulled through his flesh. Twenty-two times the needle went in, twenty-two times the needle was pushed out again, twenty-two times that the thread pulled his sore and aching flesh together. And Andrew felt every second of it with a clarity that he couldn’t have imagined.

“Should do the trick.”

Andrew didn’t know what made him do it, but he looked down, and immediately regretted it, so he quickly looked away again. The stitches were crude and irregular, the skin pulled too taut in some places and not nearly tight enough in others. It would leave one hell of a scar – if he would survive this.

His leg was throbbing but exploded in another fiery burst of pain when another load of disinfectant was poured over it. A bandage was quickly and carelessly thrown around it.

“Guess we’re done here.”

They left the supplies but took the lamp, and as the door closed, Andrew dropped his head again, tears trickling down his cheek.


	6. Tear-stained

The team had had to call in a back-up warlock as Lorenzo had been unable to cast magic, and once back in the Institute, Isabelle had tried tracking on one of Andrew’s sweaters. Nothing.

“I guess warlock tracking is out of the question?” she asked Lorenzo hesitantly. 

“At the moment, yes.” Lorenzo closed his eyes with an angry, frustrated sigh. “I need to regenerate.”

“What was that even?” Isabelle put the sweater down. “Some kind of anti-magic drug?”

“You could call it that, yes,” Lorenzo replied, and opened his eyes again. “It was developed by the Clave, but was banned with the Accords. Sadly, there are enough people who haven’t forgotten how to make it, no matter how illegal it is.”

Isabelle exhaled softly, and couldn’t meet Lorenzo’s eyes. 

“I harbour no bad feelings to present company,” Lorenzo said, and stared at the grey sweater. “It wasn’t your fault. It happened centuries ago.”

“So, what now?” Isabelle looked at the sweater as well, and at Lorenzo. “How long will it take until you can give it a shot?”

“A few hours until I have enough magic back for a simple tracking spell,” Lorenzo replied, and although he felt like screaming at her, he didn’t, because it really wasn’t her fault. It had been a trap, and he had fallen into it. And not Andrew was paying the price. 

“Would you…” Isabelle began hesitantly. “Would you care for a cup of tea in my office? Or would you rather head home to recuperate?”

“I’d rather do that, if it’s all the same to you,” Lorenzo replied heavily. “I just need to call another warlock.”

“Not necessary,” Clary said, with a small smile. “I got this.”

“Thank you, Miss Fairchild,” Lorenzo said, using the last of his strength to be polite, and stepped into the portal she had opened for him. 

As soon as the portal closed behind him, Lorenzo fell to his knees with a roar of frustration and fury. How could he have been so unbelievable careless and walk into that room like that? 

Even if another part of his brain told him that he couldn’t have known, and that he had had no reason to expect that kind of foul play, he couldn’t stop blaming himself. And what did they want with Andrew anyway? And why had they known he would be there, and would walk into that room? Or had it been sheer luck on their side?

Whatever he did though, he would not get any answers. The only thing left for him to do was rest, wait for his magic to regenerate, and attempt a proper tracking spell. He couldn’t do anything right now, and it was driving him mad. 

His hands were still shaking as he made himself some tea, and he spilled a good amount of it in the attempt of filling his cup. Sitting down with his fingers clutched around it he stared at nothing, and before his inner eyes he watched Andrew being pulled into the portal, screaming his name. Over, and over again. 

It was already dark when Lorenzo decided he had waited long enough, and he went upstairs to use Andrew’s favourite shirt as a tracking focus. 

But he got nothing. 

For a moment he had to fight down the urge of panic that he might be dead, because if they had wanted to kill him they could have done it then and there. After a moment he tried again, still to no avail. And when he tried to send him a fire message, it just bounced back to him before disintegrating. So he was behind some magical shield, which most likely meant he was still alive. 

It also meant that Lorenzo had no way of finding him, and he fell onto the bed clutching the sweater. At one point he caught himself holding it to his face to inhale the scent, and he forced himself to put it down. Doing this was too close to acting as if Andrew was dead already. 

Needless to say, Lorenzo didn’t sleep for a minute that night, pacing the house like a restless cat, picking up items, putting them back, and constantly on the verge of tearing everything around him to shreds with his magic in his fear and frustration. 

The rising sun was already painting the horizon grey when his phone tore him out of his horrible mind-space, and he ran across the hallway to grab it, as it was still lying on the bed. Knowing it was futile but not knowing what else to do he had tried to call and message Andrew earlier, and just about managed not to throw the phone against the wall. 

It was a video message, and Lorenzo closed his eyes and prepared himself for the worst.

He saw a dark room, two men, and between them Andrew was shackled do a chair, his mouth sealed shut with a strip of duct tape. It made Lorenzo’s blood run cold, but it froze when he saw the badly stitched cut in his right thigh. 

“Madre de dios...” He swallowed. “What have they done to you...”

One of the men now picked at the duct tape and roughly tore it away, making Andrew groan in pain. Lorenzo flinched, and he wasn’t sure because of the bad lighting, but Andrew looked near-delirious. Pain, no doubt, and loss of blood, and maybe even drugs.

“We have him, Rey.” 

Lorenzo swallowed hard again.

“Come on, Shadowhunter, say something so he knows it’s really you.”

Andrew took a few deep breaths, and managed to look at the camera. Lorenzo felt his vision blur when he started to speak, his voice so rough and laboured, and his lips cracked and bleeding. Probably dehydration on top of everything else, after the loss of blood. He had been in their clutches for almost twenty-four hours now.

“Hey,” Andrew said, his voice so rough it was hardly audible. “I don’t... really know what to say?”

“Tell him something only the real Underhill could know,” one of the men said and slapped the back of Andrew’s head. 

Lorenzo was gritting his teeth, and stared at the phone screen with eyes that were constantly blurring.

“So...” Andrew repeatedly licked his lips. “During our... our first night? When I was so embarrassed that I came too fast...” There was the ghost of a smile on Andrew’s lips. “And you said I wouldn’t have to worry because practise would take care of that...” He looked at his captor. “Is that enough?”

“Probably, for now.” 

Lorenzo felt the bile rise in his throat at the sound of another strip of duct tape being torn off, and it was slapped again over Andrew’s mouth. The video ended, and he had to blink his tears away. 

Whoever it was, they had Andrew, and they were torturing him, and by the way it looked, only to get at Lorenzo. He was a means to an end, nothing more. 

And Lorenzo was helpless. He had never in his life felt so helpless before. Staring at the phone with a tear-stained face he shook his head, again and again. 

“I’m so sorry...” He whispered, his voice thick with tears. “I am so sorry... But I swear I will find you. I will find you, and if it’s the last thing I ever do.”

Which was most likely their plan, but Lorenzo would not let Andrew suffer for a moment longer than necessary. 

He slowly sank onto his side, and buried his face into Andrew’s pillow with a rusty sob.


	7. Asphyxiation

Being shackled and chained to a chair, with a cut the size of a loaf of bread in his thigh, should be enough to keep his mind occupied. Or so Andrew had thought. Because now he had to realise that while there could _be_ nothing worse right now in this situation, there were small, outright trivial things that could _make_ it worse. In this case, that he was most likely to piss himself at one point because he doubted very much anyone here cared enough to let him use a bathroom. 

He tried to focus on the pain in his leg instead, and the mental image of the horrible scar the botched suturing job would cause. But what his mind kept returning to instead was the fact he had been forced to talk to Lorenzo through a video, to let him know he was still alive but in a bad place. And they had said nothing whatsoever about a ransom, which meant that Andrew wouldn’t get out of here anytime soon. It looked as if they were using torturing Andrew to push Lorenzo as far as they possibly could, so that when they eventually did name their ransom, Lorenzo would be ready to pay anything. 

Andrew closed his eyes, not that it made a difference. He was alone in a room somewhere below ground without light. The darkness was absolute. As was the silence. The only thing he could hear were his own breathing, his heartbeat, and the clinking of his chains when he moved, although he tried to do that as little as possible. 

He dimly wondered how long it would take a person to lose their mind in this situation, but didn’t get around to pondering that thought for long as the door opened again. They didn’t have flashlights this time either, but that old-fashioned gas lamp that looked like a prop from a movie set in Victorian times. It wasn’t as bright and didn’t bite Andrew’s eyes quite as harshly, but light of any source didn’t mean anything good in his situation.

They were muttering something to each other in low voices, and a small item changed hands. That was all he could see, but his heart sank when they came closer again and into the light. It was a phone, and while one of his captors now fiddled with it, the other unlocked the collar around Andrew’s neck, but didn’t touch the duct tape. 

Andrew knew better than to feel relief. Something else was now tied around his neck, something that felt like rope, in something that felt too much like a noose for him not to start shivering. 

“So, Rey,” he heard the voice of the one next to him, holding the rope. “He’s not having a very good time, is he?” The phone camera pointed at him now, at Andrew shackled to a chair, gagged with duct tape, with a noose around his neck. “Looks ominous, right? But don’t worry. We’re not going to kill your precious Nephilim boy toy.” A cruel little chuckle. “Yet.”

And Andrew felt such a surge of rage that he actually struggled against the chains that bound his arms, and of course, it might have easily been misinterpreted as terror but Andrew had no way of letting Lorenzo know. But before he could do anything else the noose around his neck was pulled tight, very slowly. Tighter, and tighter, until he was struggling to force even the slightest bit of air into his lungs. And tighter, until he couldn’t breathe anymore. His blood was gushing in his ears, his vision blurred red around the edges, and he struggled against the chains and the rope on sheer instinct. But there was no mercy. There was no air. Then his vision failed him and his mind went foggy, but before he could pass out the pressure around his neck was suddenly gone. 

It was a relief, but with only being able to breathe through his nose, he couldn’t get enough air into his lungs in the short reprieve they gave him before the noose was pulled tight again.   
This time he did pass out after only a few short moments, and surfaced again to the sensation of someone holding his head upright by grabbing his hair. He could breathe, but the noose was still there and still tight around his neck. Not enough to cut off his air completely, but tight enough to make every breath a struggle. 

“Ah, there he is again. I promised we’re not going to kill him quite yet.”

Andrew kept his eyes closed so Lorenzo wouldn’t see the terror and despair in them that he wasn’t able to hide right now; it was the only thing he could do in this situation to not make it worse. He didn’t even want to imagine being in his shoes. But there was no reprieve, there was no mercy. At that moment the duct tape was torn off again and the pressure around his neck vanished, and he could do nothing but cough and gasp for air in trembling, stertorous breaths. 

“Heh.” The hand was still in his hair, still holding his head up, and the noose was still around his neck, loosely but threatening. “I’ve heard when a man suffocates to death his cock swells, like, getting huge. Maybe you can use that in the bedroom to have some fun when you get him back.”

“If you get him back,” the other man said. “It’s entirely up to you, Rey.”

The phone was switched off. The noose was pulled tight once more, just for a second, just because his captors obviously enjoyed what they were doing, then it was loosened and pulled over his head. The collar was snapped on again, but Andrew knew better than to ask for water or any other kind of mercy before another strip of duct tape was slapped across his mouth. 

Then the door was slammed shut and locked, and Andrew was left in the darkness again, with a sore throat, a swimming head, a hammering heart – and yes, he had pissed himself now, probably when he had passed out. But that was the least of his problems right now.

His throat was swollen and the collar was a lot tighter and more uncomfortable than before; he could feel it chafe against his skin every time he swallowed. His leg hurt even more now, his shoulders were throbbing in pain and his wrists were sore, from struggling against his chains while being choked. 

Lorenzo would be losing his mind when watching this video. Andrew closed his eyes, and felt a tear trickle down his cheek.

* * *

Lorenzo dropped the phone because throwing it against the wall and destroying it would also destroy the only means for Andrew’s captors to get in touch with him. 

He slowly backed away from the bed, turned around, and fell to his knees. His magic flared up and set fire to the curtains but he didn’t care; he curled his hands into fists and slammed them against the wall with a grunt of pain, and again with a growl, and again with a scream of fury and pain and frustration and fear, and his magic flared up again, incinerating and obliterating every picture on the wall. He screamed again and the whole room around him burst into flames, until suddenly, like a stroke of lightning, a thought appeared in unsettling, crystal clarity: He couldn’t destroy his phone. The flames died down, but he could first move again when the phone rang. 

Lorenzo jumped to his feet so fast he almost lost his balance and dived across the bed, kicking up a flurry of ash and burnt bits of fabric. 

It wasn’t the unknown number he had come to dread. A moment’s hesitation, but then he answered the call. 

_“Lorenzo?”_ Magnus asked cautiously. _“I heard... How are you holding up?”_

Unable to reply, Lorenzo lowered the phone again, breathing heavily and trying not to erupt into a flare of magic fire again. The line went dead, but only a heartbeat later a portal opened somewhere downstairs, and he could hear someone dashing up the stairs. 

Magnus stopped in the doorway, taking in the destruction, and he took a deep breath when his eyes came to rest on Lorenzo, who was lying on his bed clutching the phone so hard his knuckles were white. 

“We get him back,” Magnus said, and slowly sat down on the bed. 

“They haven’t even told me why,” Lorenzo replied in a dead whisper and sat up. “They don’t tell me what they want! They keep sending me videos of him being tortured, but nothing else! Nothing ELSE!”

He finally lost control and threw the phone, but it was caught in a field of blue magic before it could hit the wall. 

“We will find him,” Magnus said again and gently deposited the phone on the sideboard, well out of reach for now. “And now we will clean up this mess so Andrew has a nice place to sleep when he comes back.”

Lorenzo looked around, slowly shaking his head. He couldn’t stop the _when_ morphing into an _if_ in his mind, no matter what he tried. 

And the next thought made his blood run cold and every hair on his body stand on edge: Yes, he might _get_ Andrew _back_... but with the way they were torturing him now it wasn’t likely that he would ever get _Andrew_ back.


	8. Hallucination

As long as there is life, there is hope. That’s how the saying goes, at least.

The thing that bothered Andrew about this was that as long as he was alive, he was bait. And he didn’t give in to any illusion that he would get out of this alive anyway. They would continue this cruel game until Lorenzo caved in, but whatever they made him pay, they wouldn’t just hand Andrew back. He had seen their faces, heard their voices. He could identify them, and a threat like that wasn’t left alive.

Sitting there alone in the darkness, in pain and burning with thirst, Andrew began, or at least tried, to make his peace with the fact that he would never see Lorenzo again, or anyone else. The only mercy fate could still give him was letting him die now, as fast as possible, so Lorenzo wouldn’t end up sharing his fate... or worse.

And he wondered if it was insolent to ask the angels for a quicker, more merciful death than the one he saw coming for him.

“You’re a coward.”

Andrew opened his eyes even though it wouldn’t make a difference. Only that this time, it did.

_Dad?_

“You’re a coward. The angels have set you onto this path, so go and embrace it. Or that’s what a true Shadowhunter would do, at least.”

_Dad... please help me._

His father shook his head and crossed his arms, a gesture as familiar as it was dreaded. He knew he had done something wrong, he knew he had fucked up, but he was already paying the price.

_I’m sorry, Dad, please help me. Please..._

His father scoffed. “Look at you. You can’t look death in the face with even a shred of dignity left. You’re a disgrace to your blood.”

He turned around, and Andrew struggled in his chains, tried to scream, but it was only a muffled groan behind the gag of duct tape.

_Dad! Don’t go! Please! Please help me! Dad!_

He was alone again, in darkness, in silence. And in more pain than before, from all the struggling.

Was it really that shameful to want a quick and merciful death?

He thought it felt like a drop on his head, but it didn’t make sense, because where would rain come from in this underground cave?

Water... If he could just have some water, just a little bit... just to take the edge off this burning thirst.

Another drop on the back of his neck, but it was warm. And it wasn’t water, it was something else, something thick and viscous, and it made his skin burn.

Ichor.

Gritting his teeth, Andrew strained against the chains, because at that moment he could feel a gust of hot breath on the back of his neck and head, a vile stench biting into his nose. The low, muted growl crawled right up his spine and into the place of his brain that didn’t know anything about Nephilim strength or angel blood, only that it was a helpless mammal facing a deadly predator in absolute darkness. Droplets of ichor kept hitting the skin of his neck, landed on his shoulders and in his hair, and Andrew would have screamed if he had been able to. He struggled against the chain with all the strength left in him, terror seeping into the marrow of his bones.

Something in his right shoulder gave with a bright red explosion of pain, and he screamed, and he could feel the skin of his lips tear as they strained against the glue of the tape sealing them shut. It sapped the last bit of strength out of him and he sagged forward, hanging from the chains, his shoulder screaming in agony.

_Please, just let this be over. Just bite my head off. Please..._

But the demon was gone. The stench was gone, and the burning patches of skin hit by ichor were no longer hurting either.

“My poor darling.”

_Nana?_

Andrew managed to lift his head again.

“My poor baby boy,” she said and looked down at him with her voice so soft, her eyes so full of compassion.

_Nana, please help me. Please help me._

“I can’t, Andy. You know I can’t.”

_Please... Nana, please..._

“I can’t, and you know why. But it’s all going to be okay.”

_I’m trapped here, and it hurts so much, and they’re going to hurt Lorenzo, probably even more. Please... please..._

Tears were stinging in his eyes, a sob catching in his throat.

_Nana, please, I just want to die, I just want to have it over with!_

“I’m sorry, my love,” she said and shook her head. “But it will all be okay again.”

_How can anything ever be okay again?_

He made the mistake of moving, and his shoulder flared up in pain so harsh it made him see stars.

“I have to go,” she said. “It’s all going to be okay.”

_No, Nana... don’t go, please..._

His eyes widened even more, and tears fell from his lashes as he shook his head.

_Nana, please don’t go! Take me with you! Nana!_

“I can’t,” she said, and leaned closer to drop a kiss onto his forehead. “It’s not your time.”

_Nana, please..._

“It’s all going to be okay.”

And then she was gone.

_Nana?_

He was alone again, in darkness, and silence, and in worse pain than he had ever been before.

_Nana..._

“What would you like for tea?”

Andrew had just about enough wit left to blink to try and clear his eyes.

Lorenzo looked at him expectantly.

_Lorenzo... what are you doing here?_

A burst of panic joined the pain.

_Get out of here! They’re after you! I’m just bait!_

“It’s a bit rude, staring at me like that without answering.” Lorenzo frowned at him. “I just asked you a simple question.”

_I can’t talk, can’t you see that? They gagged me, you have to see that! Just..._

“If that’s the way it is, suit yourself.”

Lorenzo turned away.

_No, No... please, Lorenzo, not you too!_

But Lorenzo was already gone.

_Lorenzo!_

The door slammed, but before Andrew could even process this turn of events, his two guards, or captors, or both, entered the room with their lamp and a handful of stuff Andrew couldn’t identify.

“Getting there,” one of them muttered. “Looks delirious.”

“What happened to his shoulder?”

“Shit. Dumbass motherfucker pulled it right out of the socket.”

“Bullshit. How can you dislocate your own shoulder just like that?”

“Maybe he saw something really scary?” Coarse laughter. “Maybe a demonic little spider on the ceiling or something.”

“Fuck you.”

“Whatever. He’s definitely delirious though, he’s been struggling to get out of those chains. Should have given him this yesterday but nobody listens to me. If we lose him, we lose Rey.”

Andrew could feel one of them fumbling with his right hand, felt a stinging sensation, heard a muffled swearword, and another sting. More fumbling, and a moment of coldness under his skin.

“There we go.” From the corner of his eyes Andrew could see a small plastic bag hanging from a broomstick that was stuck between the chains behind his chair.

“Need you alive, so we hooked you up to some fluids and painkillers. Enjoy it while it lasts.”

They left again, took the light with them, and Andrew closed his eyes, beyond caring about tears and the weakness they spoke of.

There was no escape, and there was no mercy. Even death wasn’t an option anymore.


	9. Humiliation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I really and literally have no excuses anymore for my behaviour. Please do not send letterbombs anyway.

Being on painkillers and fluid really wasn’t a mercy in his situation. He might not be hallucinating anymore, no longer drifting towards the edge of going mad with thirst and pain, but it left his mind a lot clearer than he was comfortable with.

Andrew still had no idea how long he had been here, but he guessed it to be two or three days. He knew he had been close to dying of dehydration, so probably closer to three. Three days in which Lorenzo was left to worry about him, the only sign that he was still alive the videos they sent him. Videos of him being tortured.

And now the door to his prison cell opened again, but this time there were three men. His usual two tormentors and a third one; it might have been the one Andrew had tried to take down in his attempt to break free from the first room he had been locked up in.

“Holy crap, you really think you still have a bargaining chip with the state he’s in?”

“He’s not doing so bad.” How he hated that voice. “Should have seen him last night.”

“You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?” There was clear disgust in the third man’s voice.

“He’s a bloody Nephilim. Those assholes killed half of my pack! Just because we’re werewolves!”

“This one?”

“I don’t care! They’re all the same to me!”

“Okay...” A deep breath. “And you torturing and killing any odd Nephilim just because they’re Nephilim makes you better... how?”

“Fuck off!”

“I can’t tell you how much I’d like to, but I am stuck here now, no matter how many second thoughts I have about this whole undertaking. So just tell me what I have to do.”

“Just a flick of magic, nothing else.” The other one of his captors, just as cruel as the first.

But Andrew knew better than to think he might have an ally in the third. The man might have second thoughts, quite obviously didn’t approve of his treatment, but that didn’t mean he’d risk anything for a Nephilim.

“A flick of magic to do what?”

“Just get rid of his clothes.”

Great. Oh great. Angel, what else? And of course they would try something like that after they had restored a bit of his mental capacity, so he would be aware of the whole humiliating process. In the state he had been in a few hours ago, he couldn’t have cared less about if his dick was on display or not. And they would probably video that as well.

He briefly wondered if Lorenzo even could ever look at him again without seeing the memory of him being tortured and humiliated, but then he realised that it didn’t really matter. Whatever had been between them was no longer there. Things would never be as they had been before. They might still be in love with each other, but going through this had cut a wound into their relationship that it might not be able to recover from. And even if it did... it would never be as before.

He looked down at his right leg, and saw that the thigh was swollen, the tissue straining and bulging around the knots. It hurt like fire despite the painkillers, so there had to be a serious infection setting in. A nice metaphor, really. Even if the wound would ever heal, his leg wouldn’t be like it had been before. But even if his leg could be restored completely with magic, no amount of magic could restore that happy lightness, the causal intimacy, the easy laughter, and the peaceful comfort they had felt in each other’s presence. Everything would be tainted by the memories, and by the fact Lorenzo had seen him like this.

So in that moment, it really didn’t matter anymore what they did to him.

Lost in his unpleasant thoughts a chunk of the conversation had passed him by, and he snapped back into attention when he heard the warlock mention Lorenzo’s name.

“Yes, I get that you’re only doing this to get at Rey. But this isn’t what I signed up for. So maybe he’s a Nephilim, but I don’t torture prisoners. See me do work-to-rule, nothing more. I just want this to be over.”

_You’re not the only one._

“Then do your thing and fuck off.”

The warlock shook his head with a sigh, and Andrew felt a tingle of foreign magic crawl over his skin. Kind of weird, how he instantly knew it wasn’t Lorenzo’s magic.

“And now leave me alone with this.”

“Go fuck yourself.”

The door opened and closed, and Andrew just about managed to look down at himself, within the restriction of the collar. Yes, definitely butt-ass naked now. He closed his eyes with a shudder.

“So, Rey.”

It shouldn’t bother him so much; he didn’t have any dignity to lose anyway. The phone video thing was definitely worse. Especially now, thinking that they would force Lorenzo to see him like this. But it did, and he hated it.

“Not kissed by the golden morning, is he? But we hooked him up to fluids and painkillers last night. Because we need him alive, you and us.”

“But just to make sure you don’t forget where exactly we’re at, we make sure you know who’s in control here,” the other one added.

As if that needed any reinforcement. They just did this because they were vicious, sadistic assholes who enjoyed torturing someone who couldn’t escape or defend himself.

It took Andrew a moment to identify the sudden buzzing sound as clippers. And honestly, it should be more annoying than anything else right now. He was still in pain even if it wasn’t excruciating anymore, he was still thirsty as hell, and he was chained to a chair with a strap of duct tape across his mouth. And now they thought they could make it worse with shaving his head?

But that wasn’t the real point, was it? Because they were doing this to make it worse for Lorenzo, who was now forced to watch him being put through this. And they could definitely make a very unpleasant point of how helpless Andrew was right now.

“And just to make sure you watch this whole thing,” the one with the clippers said, “we’re going to talk about the ransom, finally. I guess you been waiting for this.”

With that he stepped closer, and ran the clippers over his head, right in the middle from forehead to neck.

“Over to you, Jack.”

The other one now produced a sheet of paper.

“I have been waiting for this for a long time now, Rey,” he read, while the other one ran the clippers across Andrew’s head again, from ear to ear this time. He felt his hair fall down his shoulders, an unpleasant, tickly and scratchy sensation. It made his throat burn.

_It’s just hair, it’s just fucking hair, get yourself together, Underhill. You fucking pansy._

“We shall meet somewhere with flair. How about Nazca? Doesn’t that sound splendid? Miles of free sight, just in case you were thinking about bringing anyone. And don’t bother bringing anything either, it’s nothing material I am after.”

More of his hair fell down his shoulders, landing on his bare arms. It shouldn’t bother him. In his situation it really, really shouldn’t bother him.

But it fucking did.

Andrew pinched his eyes shut and gritted his teeth, the buzzing of the clippers roaring in his ears.

“And as to what I want? Well, you may have heard about the forbidden spell of Sun Tzu? I always admired him. My favourite quote of his is: The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.”

Andrew’s head was pushed forward and down so the clippers could take the rest of his hair on the back of his head. It didn’t even hurt. It would grow back. Why was he keying himself up so much over this? But despite that, he felt his eyes burn. He was such a pathetic idiot.

“Yes, a warlock I greatly admire. It is a great shame how he ended, and much too soon. And in case you don’t know what his forbidden spell is, then I think there’s a book in the Spiral Labyrinth about him that you can consult. And if you know already? Then you know what I want of you. I see you in twenty-four hours, Rey.”

Andrew’s head was pushed back again, and the clippers were finally switched off. Then his captor pointed with the clippers at the camera.

“And the next time, whatever we will cut off won’t grow back. So don’t try and stall for time. We got our orders. If the boss drops the word, we’re to start dismembering him, bit by bit. I think we’ll start with the toes.”

The phone was switched off, and the bloody asshole honest to god patted Andrew’s head before he left him.

The light was gone, the door fell shut.

Andrew dropped his head with a sob.


	10. Ransom

The phone slid out of Lorenzo’s trembling fingers, landing on the carpet between his feet.

This was worse than he could ever have imagined.

Closing his eyes, he fought the bile rising in his throat, and the onset of ice-cold panic. He had no doubt whatsoever that they weren’t making empty threats; if he refused, they would start cutting Andrew apart alive, bit by bit. From what he had seen, what he had been forced to see, they had the capacity for that. No lack of cruelty.

Lorenzo had known from the beginning that whatever Andrew’s captors wanted, it wouldn’t be something as simple as his estate in Thailand or anything else material. But this?

He should probably inform the Institute right away. After all, this wasn’t only about him, it was also about a Shadowhunter kidnapped by some Downworlders. It was not only about them trying to destroy Lorenzo and his life, they were breaking the Accords. So he slowly bent over and picked up his phone. The lock screen was a picture of Andrew, and he stared at it for a moment, listening to his heartbeat gushing in his ears.

He almost jumped out of his skin when it rang, but he recognised the number. And it wasn’t Andrew’s kidnappers.

“Magnus?”

_“I just wanted to check if there is any news?”_

Lorenzo didn’t understand this outburst of compassion. True, he and Magnus had buried the hatchet, had spent a few evenings playing chess in an attempt to channel their rivalry into something harmless, sticking to conversation topics they could agree on. Calling them friends was maybe stretching it a little, but then, Andrew was a friend of Alec’s, so this wasn’t about him anyway, at least not exclusively.

_“Lorenzo?”_

“There...” He swallowed. “There is. I got...” And how he wished he hadn’t. “I got another video message today. I finally know what they want of me.”

_“And... what do they want? I can’t imagine it’s your estate in Thailand or the contents of your library.”_

“No.” Lorenzo closed his eyes and dragged a hand down his face. “It’s...”

He couldn’t even think about it without wanting to crawl out of own skin, and trying to talk about it was like being punched in the guts, as if all air had been knocked out of him.

“He wants to meet at Nazca,” Lorenzo eventually forced himself to say. “They gave me twenty-four hours, from the moment I got his message, which was... I think half an hour ago, give or take.” Twenty-four hours. “I’m to meet him there alone.”

_“Who?”_

“I don’t know.” Lorenzo opened his eyes again and stared at the wall. “Andrew’s captors were reading a message from a sheet of paper. All I know is that I now have twenty-three hours to show up at Nazca alone before they... they...”

_“They kill him?”_ Magnus asked cautiously.

“Before they, and I quote, start dismembering him bit by bit, starting with the toes.” He had to swallow the urge to heave.

_“And...”_ Magnus took a deep breath. _“What is it they want?”_

Lorenzo couldn’t bring himself to answer for a good long moment. His voice was weak, slightly trembling, when he finally managed to speak again.

“Do you know the forbidden spell of Sun Tzu?”

The line went dead, and ten seconds later, a portal appeared in the hallway.

“No!” Magnus said, storming across the room. “Under no circumstances! We can’t let that happen, Lorenzo!”

“If you have an alternative then I am all ears!” Lorenzo got up. “I am not exactly in a good bargaining position right now!”

The two warlocks stared at each other for a moment, then Magnus shook his head and stepped closer.

“It’s... it’s not going to happen, Lorenzo,” he said. “We can’t let that happen. The consequences-”

“I know the consequences as well as you do!” Lorenzo gritted his teeth with a grunt. “Or maybe almost as well as you.”

“You don’t know anything,” Magnus whispered. “Believe me.”

Lorenzo shook his head and looked away, and at his phone again. “What am I supposed to do then?”

“I don’t know. We have a few hours to come up with something.”

“We?” Lorenzo looked up at him again, mildly confused, but filled with an irrational surge of hope that he might not be alone in this.

“Look, we might not be best friends for life, but...” Magnus shrugged. “We figure something out,” he said again. “And I suggest we inform the Institute now, they want the update.”

Shoving his phone back into his pocket Lorenzo nodded, and opened a portal. As soon as they entered the Institute Magnus gave Alec a call, who had insisted that he’d be in on the case, both as Inquisitor regarding the breaking of the Accords, and as a Shadowhunter and Andrew’s friend.

Less than ten minutes later Lorenzo, Magnus, Alec, and Isabelle were looking at a map of Nazca on one of the Institute’s screens, for want of anything else to look at. Jace now joined them as well; he was head of Security in Andrew’s absence and Isabelle’s second in command.

“So we finally have a ransom, did I understand that correctly?” Isabelle asked.

“Yes,” Lorenzo replied in a heavy voice, and stared at the screen.

“Would you mind telling us, then?” Jace asked after a moment.

Lorenzo pressed his lips together with a flick of his head, then took a deep breath. “Apologies,” he muttered. “The... from what I gathered, the kidnappers, those who have been... in... touch with me, are working for a warlock.”

“Hang on; the kidnappers have been in touch with you?” Alec asked, lowering his eyebrows.

“They... they have.” Lorenzo rubbed his hand across his forehead. “They have sent me video messages...”

“That would have been nice to know,” Isabelle said flatly.

“... of Andrew being tortured,” Lorenzo finished slowly.

“To soften him up so he would be ready to pay anything they want from him,” Magnus added.

“Tortured?” Isabelle asked after a moment of silence.

“The point is,” Lorenzo said sharply, “that he is running out of time. I was given an ultimatum, and we are wasting time here. If I don’t show up at Nazca before tomorrow evening, they will start dismembering him alive, and from what I have seen, I have no doubt they will go through with it.”

A moment of stony silence hung between them.

“So what is it they want?” Alec asked, crossing his arms.

“There is a... a spell,” Lorenzo said after a moment, a cold shudder creeping down his spine. “It’s old, the warlock who invented it is long gone, and the spell has been banned for centuries. And with banned I mean...”

“In this case, penalty of death,” Magnus supplied. “This spell should never have been made.”

“And what kind of spell is that?” Jace asked, crossing his arms as well.

“It...” Lorenzo swallowed. “It...”

“In effect, the same as what my father did to me,” Magnus said, looking at Lorenzo, and back at the Shadowhunters.

“So... he will take Lorenzo’s magic?” Isabelle asked, the horror obvious in her voice and her eyes.

Magnus nodded. “All of it. And permanently.”

“What? No!” Isabelle said after a moment. “There has to be something we can do!”

“There has to be,” Magnus agreed, looking at Lorenzo again who could only stare at the map of Nazca, unable to meet anyone’s eyes. “It’s something I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy.”

“And Lorenzo...” Jace said hesitantly.

“We’ve been working on not being enemies anymore,” Magnus replied. “But that’s not the point. I don’t care who would be faced with that choice. I can’t let that happen.”

“So we have to strike before they make the... spell, or whatever,” Jace said, looking around.

“Which isn’t an option, because of the location,” Magnus replied. “There’s literally no way we can ambush them there.”

“Not even behind some sort of magic shield that makes us all invisible?” Alec asked, his eyes on Magnus.

Magnus pursed his lips. “Possible as such, but a bit difficult if you’re dealing with a warlock. He might sense it.”

“I can’t risk that!” Lorenzo spun around. “If it backfires, then Andrew...” he couldn’t finish that sentence, but luckily, he didn’t have to. They all knew what was at stake here.

“If we could distract them somehow,” Alec said with a frown. “So we could get in position behind that shield.”

“There is no way,” Lorenzo said after a moment, the words feeling like rocks on his tongue. His insides recoiled in naked terror, but the plain truth was that he was out of options. “I am running out of time. Andrew is running out of time. I have to go to Nazca.”

“Lorenzo,” Alec said slowly, and looked up at him. “I really... I know that this sounds callous, but... Andrew wouldn’t want that.”

“I didn’t think he would,” Lorenzo gave back sharply. “But what choice do I have?”

“I know... but even if you go through with this...” Alec shook his head. “They won’t leave him alive. He has seen their faces, heard their voices. He can identify them; they won’t leave him alive to take that chance.”

“And you expect me to just sit back and let them kill him?!” For a moment, Lorenzo couldn’t breathe from the sheer thought.

“Of course not! But... Look.” Alec took a deep breath. “If you sacrifice your magic like that, then he won’t be able to live with himself anymore, knowing he’s the reason for... we all know what will happen. Magnus better than anyone.” He cast a short look at Magnus before looking at Lorenzo again. “And no, I’m not saying we should abandon him. I’m saying we should use the time trying to come up with a solution. You can be in Nazca with the snap of your fingers ten minutes before the deadline and still be on time.”

“And since stalling for time isn’t an option,” Isabelle said, staring thoughtfully at the map, “we need a distraction, so we can somehow get close enough to stop the spell from happening and capture the warlock in question.”

“While still being able to extract the information about Andrew’s whereabouts,” Magnus added.

“And that information is supposed to be given after the deed,” Jace finished.

“But said deed is irreversible,” Magnus said with a heavy sigh. “So we can’t let it happen.”

“Not to Lorenzo, no,” Jace said after a moment, very slowly. “We need a decoy.”

Magnus leaned forward. “Excuse me? A hologram with magic?”

“No,” Jace replied, lifting his forefinger. “Listen. When Alec was bonded with Lorenzo through Clary’s rune, he could use Lorenzo’s magic, right?”

“For a given value of,” Alec replied, casting a quick look at Lorenzo before looking at Jace. “Your point is?”

“My point is, could Magnus or Lorenzo do that with a spell? Or something like it? Bind a Shadowhunter to Lorenzo’s magic, and glamour that Shadowhunter as Lorenzo? He would do the spell thing, but wouldn’t actually take the magic from Lorenzo because it’s not actually Lorenzo he’s using the spell on, right? I mean, he would still be dealing with Lorenzo’s magic, it wouldn’t feel any different, would it? And while that happens, the others can get in a position to take him out as soon as we have the information we need.”

“I’ll be damned,” Magnus said, looking at Jace with widening eyes. “I had no idea you could be so clever.”

Jace smiled smugly with a one-sided shrug while Alec slapped his shoulder.

“Then we need a volunteer,” Magnus went on, looking at Lorenzo, “and figure out how to best achieve the binding ritual in the available time.”

“I can do that,” Alec said. “I handled Lorenzo’s magic before.”

“But you shouldn’t,” Jace replied. “I think it’s more important we have a long distance fighter at hand in addition to the warlocks. I’ll do it.”

Lorenzo stood there and looked back and forth between the others, absolutely stunned. He couldn’t fathom how and why his former arch-nemesis and a group of Shadowhunters, who after what had happened had no reason to feel friendship for him, should suddenly work together and risk their lives to save Lorenzo’s skin instead of just letting it happen to get their comrade back. It was probably mostly the fact Magnus had said it was a fate he wouldn’t wish upon his greatest enemy than any form of sympathy for Lorenzo himself, but he wasn’t in a position to count his blessings.

“If that’s the plan, then we should get going,” Jace said after looking back and forth between the two warlocks. “I probably need a bit of a crash course in magic and in Lorenzo to be convincing enough.”

Lorenzo swallowed, still at a loss for words, but then Magnus rested a hand on his shoulder.

“I... I don’t know how to thank you,” he eventually managed to say.

“That’s not important right now,” Magnus replied with a small smile. “What’s important is that we get this over with so we can get Andrew back. It’s just what happens when a warlock is in love with a Shadowhunter.” He shrugged, a crooked, yet fond smile on his lips. “It brings all the self-sacrificing, protective instincts to flare up like nothing else. I guess that’s just the way it is.”

“Maybe it is,” Lorenzo replied slowly, meeting his eyes. “Thank you.”

Magnus patted his shoulder and let go. “Let’s get this over with.”


	11. Beaten

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You can read this chapter two ways, and decide who exactly is beaten now. You'll know what I mean.

Lorenzo cast the portal for Jace because portalling wasn’t something you could learn in a few hours, and the warlocks, together with the Shadowhunters, would portal in a good bit further away, behind the shield that would hopefully make them undetectable.

Jace, who had practiced a bit of Lorenzo’s body language and tone of voice, now positioned himself right in the middle of the plain, visible from afar in every direction. And it didn’t take long before another portal appeared, and two warlocks stepped out.

“Look who it is,” one of them said. “Long time, no see, Lorenzo.”

Behind the shield, Lorenzo gritted his teeth, his eyes flaring up with hatred. Magnus closed his hand around Lorenzo’s arm, and Lorenzo nodded. He could do this. But this wouldn’t end well for Georg.

_His name is Georg_, Lorenzo conveyed to Jace via the Seelie rings. _He was my arch rival back when I was working for the High Warlock of Madrid. We haven’t seen each other in almost two centuries. I don’t know who the other is._

“Georg. I would say it’s nice to see you again, but I’m afraid it would be a lie,” Jace replied, and folded his hands behind his back.

Georg laughed with a toothy grin. “Oh, likewise. I was hoping I’d never see you again, but I have to admit the circumstances allow me to enjoy the reunion.”

_Get it over with._

“Can we just get it over with?” Jace asked.

“In a hurry to lose your magic, Rey?”

“In a hurry to see the Shadowhunter free from your clutches.”

“Ah, right. Your Shadowhunter. He is indeed not in a good place, is he?”

_Say nothing._

Jace gritted his teeth.

“I am a man of my word, Lorenzo. You will get the location. As soon as I have your magic.”

“And I am to believe that why?”

“Here.” Georg produced a folded piece of paper and put it on the ground, weighing it down with a small stone. “Location, as promised. Grab it as soon as I have portalled out, and you can... Oh, how silly of me.” His laughter was grating on everyone’s nerves. “I’m afraid you have to take a little hike until you find cell service and call someone willing to portal you out, and to where you have to go.”

_Say nothing._

Jace remind silent, hands still folded behind his back.

“Right, I know.” Georg began rolling up his sleeves. “I am enjoying this immensely, but the location isn’t the most pleasant one. Bit windy, and dusty. So let’s get this over with.”

And he began weaving the spell, until a mix of red, green, and yellow veins of magic surrounded his hands. Lorenzo felt sick to the stomach, and looking at Magnus, he could see that the other warlock felt the same. Georg now encased Jace in that field of magic, and moments later a stream of golden light left Jace’s body, to be absorbed by the other warlock.

_It’s agony_. Even in his mind Lorenzo’s voice seemed to shake. _It’s absolute horror and agony._

They had talked about this beforehand as well, with Magnus trying to explain how it felt, and with Jace trying to imagine someone was sucking his angelic powers right out of his blood, his runes catching fire and being burned off his skin. So the moment the magic hit him Jace staggered and screamed, arching his back, fighting for balance through the whole process. And since Georg watched him with the most unpleasant, disgusting smile ever, it was convincing enough.

“Didn’t know he’s such a good actor,” Magnus whispered under his breath as they inched closer.

And focussed as he was on causing Lorenzo as much pain and agony as possible, Georg didn’t sense the magic shield approach until it was too late. Lorenzo could feel the tug at his magic that sucked it out of Jace like a leech, and he carefully let go of some of the magic so Georg wouldn’t be surprised by how little there was and get suspicious, but remained careful about draining himself.

The other warlock however just stood there, holding out his hand. It wasn’t quite clear what he was doing, but he didn’t contribute to the spell in any way.

The stream of light ended in a weak flicker of pale gold.

_Collapse._

Jace landed on his knees, gasping and coughing and groaning. By now the others behind the shield were close enough to strike.

“Well, it’s been a pleasure,” Georg said, and was about to cast a portal when Magnus dropped the shield.

“Not so fast,” Alec said, and let go of his arrow that embedded itself in Georg’s upper arm, effectively stopping the spell to open the portal.

Shocked into petrifaction by both their appearance and the sudden pain, Georg failed to react, and Jace used that to his advantage; he jumped to his feet and had locked Georg’s arm behind his back and his blade at Georg’s throat within an instant.

The other warlock stared at them, and at the others who had appeared from behind the barrier. Then he lifted his hands with a fatalistic sigh, as if he had expected this, and seemed to almost be relieved. He didn’t offer the slightest resistance when Isabelle snapped a pair of warlock manacles around his wrists.

“What...” Georg looked as if he was about to piss himself. “A seraph blade?”

“Surprise,” Jace whispered into his ear, and Magnus snapped his fingers to dispel the glamour.

Before he could try anything Clary now dived forward and grabbed the piece of paper, and with Alec pointing another arrow at him, Isabelle didn’t waste any time and put a pair of warlock manacles on Georg.

“You got me,” Georg said, baring his teeth. “But without my code word, they’ll start cutting your Shadowhunter to pieces anyway, any moment.”

Lorenzo didn’t spare him a glance and took the piece of paper that Clary held out to him. And was dismayed to find it contained a long string of numbers, nothing else.

“What is this,” he snarled.

Georg grinned at him.

“Answer me!” Lorenzo barked and shot a bolt of magic right into Georg’s groin. The other warlock jerked forward with a groan, and would have doubled over if it hadn’t been for Jace increasing his grip. But despite sweat beading on his temple, he had quite obviously no intention of answering Lorenzo’s question.

“Tick tock,” was all he said.

Clary picked the paper out of Lorenzo’s fingers and looked at it.

“They’re GPS coordinates,” she said after a moment. “We need to get back to the Institute.”

Magnus immediately cast a portal, Jace dragging George along while the other warlock just went with them without resistance, and they all headed back to the Institute. The warlocks were handed over to two Shadowhunters who brought them to a magic-proof cell in the basement, and Clary immediately headed for the nearest screen.

“Seems like we’re in Siberia somewhere,” Clary said, staring at the screen. She had just typed in the coordinates from the note, and zoomed in on the location.

“A bunker?” Isabelle asked, narrowing her eyes.

“Something like that.” Clary zoomed in as far as she could. “Could be an underground military base.”

“And how do we portal there if we haven’t been there before?”

Magnus looked at the map and zoomed out again with a frown. “Middle of nowhere,” he said, shaking his head.

“Where’s the nearest leyline junction?” Lorenzo asked, stepping to Magnus’ side.

Magnus looked at him with parted lips. “You really want to risk that?”

“Alternatives?” Lorenzo crossed his arms.

“None,” Magnus said. “Biscuit, can you overlay a leyline map?”

The fates were smiling on them, as it seemed. There was a major leyline junction practically around the corner, and after some debate about the best course of action, Lorenzo and Magnus portalled them to Moscow. After finding the closest leyline junction there they poured their magic into the leyline grid, until they had reached the point they needed via counting junctions and measuring the length and directions of the lines in between. Lorenzo cast the portal, but held out his arm to the Shadowhunters.

“We can’t be one hundred percent certain this worked,” he said. “None of you should risk ending up in limbo. Magnus, you follow the leylines via the junction jumps, it’s safer.”

“It’ll also take longer.”

“Which is why we are splitting up.”

“Are you sure this is a good idea?” Magnus asked, deeply worried.

“No.” With that Lorenzo stepped towards the portal, and took a deep breath, rolling his shoulders. The truth was he was terrified, but he also meant what he had said. Then he looked at Magnus. “If I don’t make it, tell him I love him, and that I’m sorry he had to be put through that because of me.”

And before Magnus could reply, he stepped into the portal.

* * *

Despite the duct tape Andrew had screamed himself hoarse, watching the video on the phone screen one of his torturers was thrusting into his face. He hadn’t wanted to, but tightening the collar had been enough of a thread to do as they told him, and watch in helpless terror what was happening to Lorenzo. And now they left him again, in darkness, alone, and with his mind reeling.

The burning pain in his shoulder and his leg paled into insignificance.

Lorenzo had lost his magic because of him. Lorenzo had lost everything, his mental, physical and spiritual identity, a part of his very soul. Because of him.

He should never have talked to him. Never have tried to make Lorenzo a part of his life. Because now he had destroyed the man he loved. He might still be breathing, but Lorenzo was gone. Forever.

Because of him.

Now Andrew was crying in big, ugly sobs, begging the angels to let this be over, begging them that all this had been a hallucination too, that it wasn’t true. Begging them to end this nightmare he was trapped in.

A nightmare from which there was no escape. A nightmare he couldn’t wake up from.

Because he wasn’t asleep.


	12. Numb

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Two important things: **  
One: this chapter got huge because it took forever to get to the part where _numb_ actually applies, but that's because I wanted to properly unleash Lorenzo which leads me to  
Two: Lorenzo unleashed is fury incarnate and this chapter contains a bit of gore, which, I admit, was very satisfying to write. Since the definition of 'a bit' varies from person to person however I marked the section that contains the gore with ***, so you can either prepare yourself or skip it and start reading again with the next set of ***.

Lorenzo had never in his life been so glad to step into a gust of ice-cold wind that immediately made his skin burn. Luckily it wasn’t winter and there wasn’t any snow, but a longer walk than he had before him would have been close to impossible, as there hadn’t been any time to get properly dressed for the surroundings. He had quickly summoned a jacket before portalling to Moscow, that was it.

He could see the low hill that marked the entrance to the bunker, and he broke into a run. It only took him a few minutes to get there, but his heart was hammering for another reason than the run, and he was gasping for air once he had reached the door, and not because of a lack of fitness. 

He just barely remembered to drop Magnus a fire message to tell him he had made it before he readied his magic, and he blasted the door to pieces without wasting any more time. 

Once inside however he stopped, his heart still racing. Several doors were to the left and the right, and the hallway split in a T-junction some way ahead. Magic glowing around his hands he opened a few of the doors, but the rooms were empty, old office furniture covered in thick layers of dust.

At the T-junction he stopped, looking left and right. In both directions he could see several other hallways going off to both sides again, and he took a deep breath. This place was a maze. After a moment’s thought however he closed his eyes and focussed, took a few more breaths to calm his breathing and his mind, and snapped his fingers to summon Andrew’s sweater that was still lying on the bed at home. 

The tracking spell led him across two more junctions and around several bends, and after what felt like an eternity and hundreds of miles, he could finally hear voices. Dropping the sweater Lorenzo now activated his combat magic, dark gold shot through with orange veins, and with that light dancing around his hands, he approached the door. It was open just a crack, and he could hear the voice he had come to hate with a burning passion.

“Still haven’t heard anything. Looks like something went wrong.”

“You sure we still...?” That was the other voice, from the one who had done the recording. “Shouldn’t we just fuck off?”

“And where do you want to fuck off to without the warlocks?”

“Good question. Boss said though he wants to send the shots of what’s left of him to Rey personally.”

“Isn’t Hopkins still here?”

“I guess. I go look for him.”

Lorenzo took a step to the side so that the opening door would hide him, and the moment the man stepped into line of sight he shot out a whip of magic that snapped around his throat, preventing him from making any sound as Lorenzo pushed the door shut. 

He desperately clawed at the noose of magic around his throat but Lorenzo just yanked at it, choking him even more while pulling him closer. It was so incredibly satisfying it might have been scary because Lorenzo wasn’t a violent man, but the memories of Andrew had him grin in furious satisfaction as he choked the man in front of him with magic until his eyes were bulging. He stared up at Lorenzo in terror, and proceeded to piss himself upon seeing his facial expression. 

Lorenzo would have liked to draw this out, relent the pressure and increase it again, choke him so slowly he would need half an hour to die, but he didn’t have the time. So as soon as the man collapsed Lorenzo increased the pressure even more, just to make sure he would never get up again, and when he couldn’t detect a heartbeat anymore with the tendril of magic, he let go and opened the door again.

“Did you find him?”

“I sure did,” Lorenzo snarled, so focussed on the man in front of him that he only registered Andrew shackled to his chair in his peripheral vision. A rope of magic shot out to wind around the man’s neck, but Lorenzo had no intention of letting this one off so lightly. 

“Surprised?” He pulled the magic a little tighter and lifted him off the ground, his feet now uselessly kicking about. “Don’t bother trying to call for help by the way, your comrade is already dead.” And a little tighter. “Surprised I still have my magic?”

Panic stood in the man’s eyes now, and a small glance from the corners of his eyes at Andrew, who was hanging limply in his chains, seemingly unconscious, mad Lorenzo’s rage flare up in burning flames. He whipped another rope of magic around the man’s midriff to make sure he couldn’t break free, while at the same time releasing the one around his throat. He gasped for air, but Lorenzo wasn’t finished. 

*******

A stream of magic now forced itself past his lips, burying itself through his throat into his guts, and another one did the same up his asshole. Lorenzo took a grim, deep satisfaction in his facial expression, horror and agony and wide-eyed panic, but he was unable to scream, hardly able to breathe. Lorenzo had left him just enough air so he wouldn’t pass out because he wanted him to experience every second of his death. 

More magic poured into his body from both ends, and more, until his eyes and nose were bleeding while Lorenzo growled at him with bared teeth from the strain. Writhing and flailing and kicking the man was now trying to scream, but it came out as a suffocated gargling sound that made Lorenzo grin even broader. 

And then finally, his body couldn’t take anymore, and it simply burst open like a corpse that has been rotting in the sun for too long, the magic literally tearing him apart in an eruption of blood and guts. 

*******

A few droplets of hot blood hit Lorenzo’s face despite him standing on the other side of the room, but the moment the body, or what was left of it, hit the ground, Lorenzo dropped his magic and ran to Andrew’s side. 

He was hanging forward in his chains, and for a short moment of white-hot panic Lorenzo thought he had been choked to death by the collar. He hastily fumbled around below the collar searching for a pulse, and couldn’t suppress a small sob of relief when he found it. Taking a few deep, slightly shaky breaths to calm himself, he gently cradled Andrew’s face in his hands to lift his head. His eyes were open a crack, but he didn’t seem to see him. 

“Andrew,” Lorenzo whispered, running his thumbs across Andrew’s cheeks. “Andrew, I’m here. I’m sorry it took me so long.”

Andrew didn’t react, and Lorenzo needed a few breaths more to calm down enough to use his magic in a controlled and gentle way. He slowly peeled the duct tape away, the magic disintegrating it so he wouldn’t hurt Andrew’s lips any more, and he shuddered at the soft, husky moan. Lorenzo cupped his cheeks again, trying to search Andrew’s eyes, but he seemed to be more than half unconscious. 

Holding Andrew’s head with one hand Lorenzo now summoned his magic again to unlock the chains, and after carefully removing the collar he felt another surge of rage at the sight of skin scraped raw by the edges of the metal. He then freed his wrists, starting with the left one, but when he undid the right one Andrew let out a throaty groan of pain. It took Lorenzo a moment until he noticed the bulge, another to identify it as a dislocated shoulder, and his rage flared up again so hot he was surprised his clothes didn’t catch fire. 

He also realised he had no idea how to deal with this, on his own, without causing Andrew a horrible amount of pain with trying to get him out of those chains. Looking at him again his vision blurred and he felt a lump form in his throat the size of a brick. The skin around his mouth red and sore, the neck scraped raw, the shaved hair, chained naked to a chair with his right thigh almost grotesquely swollen, the wound oozing a pale pink fluid. It was more than he could handle and with a rusty sob he cradled Andrew’s face again and rested their foreheads together. 

“I’m so sorry,” he whispered in a trembling voice. “I am so sorry...”

Andrew didn’t react at all. 

“Lorenzo!”

Lorenzo shot upright, heart beginning to race again, and he carefully let go of Andrew’s head that immediately sank forward again. He had the presence of mind to run a wave of magic across Andrew’s skin to remove the stench, and just enough time to summon a pair of briefs onto him, to preserve the tiniest bit of his dignity in the eyes of his friends. 

“Lorenzo!” Magnus called again, and he could hear soft voices saying things like ‘oh my god’ and ‘by the Angel’ as they came across the body in the hallway. 

“Lorenzo?” Magnus entered the room now, magic at the ready, and froze with his eyes widening in horror as the first thing he saw was the mutilated body at the other side of the room. “Oh my god...”

“Magnus, I need help.”

Magnus needed a moment to tear his eyes away from the carnage, and slowly turned around. Now his eyes widened even more, and he hurried towards Lorenzo’s side, magic turning from red to blue. 

“I... suddenly understand the way you chose to dispose of those men.” Magnus let his eyes wander across Andrew’s body, looking for the injury that required most immediate attention.

Lorenzo couldn’t take his eyes off Andrew’s almost lifeless face. “His right arm is dislocated, and I can’t remove the chains without causing him even more pain like that.”

Magnus nodded, and ran his magic across Andrew’s right arm and shoulder. “The tendons are extremely strained, some muscles too, everything’s hardened from...” Magnus huffed and shook his head. “I don’t think we can do this without hurting him. I feel... kind of reluctant to sedate him in his weakened state.”

“And I’d say we risk more if we don’t sedate him.”

The two looked at each other, both more or less helpless in the face of this dilemma. Magnus didn’t have much medical knowledge, and Lorenzo even less. But then Alec walked across the room and around the chair, gently closing a hand around Andrew’s upper arm.

“One of you sedates him, the other keeps an eye on the vitals. Jace!” He waved him over. “Jace and I set the arm.”

“But do it carefully,” Lorenzo said, “so you don’t pull any muscles.”

“Don’t worry,” Alec said simply. “We’ve done this before.”

Once the two warlocks were ready Alec and Jace positioned themselves, Jace with his hand at the back of the shoulder, while Alec took Andrew’s hand, mindful of the raw skin of his wrist. He slowly pulled the arm upwards and slightly to the side, and after a moment the arm slid back into the socket with a wet crunching sound that made everyone wince. Lorenzo still kept his magic trained on Andrew’s heart and breathing, and Magus got rid of the other shackles now. 

It was clear that the sedation was a blessing; after being forced to sit like that for days Andrew’s joints and spine were almost stiff, and being stretched straight and laid down would have been agony for him. But despite the sedation Andrew groaned in pain as Jace accidentally touched his right leg, and yellow fluid oozed out of the wound. 

Lorenzo knelt down at Andrew’s side and forced his breathing calm, but couldn’t help gritting his teeth. The last time he had seen injuries like this was during the First World War, and the only chance of survival the soldiers had had back then had been amputation. Thankfully they had modern medical technology and magic at their disposal, but Lorenzo wished for nothing more at that moment than being able to bring the two men back to life so he could kill them again, even slower this time. 

Andrew’s eyelids fluttered open, and his head fell to one side with a groan.

“Andrew,” Lorenzo said softly, resting a hand on his cheek to look at his face. “Andrew?”

Andrew looked at nothing, his eyes empty.

“Andrew?”

He blinked, the only sign of him being still somewhat conscious, but showed no reaction whatsoever to Lorenzo’s voice or his presence. 

Lorenzo felt a hand on his shoulder, and Isabelle went into a crouch next to him. 

“Are you okay?” she asked softly.

“No.” Lorenzo looked up at her. “I’m not. But thank you for asking.”

Alec went down onto one knee next to Andrew’s other side, his stele in hand. He ran it across Andrew’s iratze, and while that had an effect on the raw skin around his wrists, ankles, and neck, it did nothing for the wound in his thigh. 

“It’s not doing much,” Lorenzo said, his eyes on Andrew’s face, trying to find some sign of life in his half-closed eyes. 

“No, but it’ll help with the pain,” Alec replied, and brought the stele to the strength rune on his own arm. “Everything else will have to happen in the infirmary.”

He slipped the stele back into his pocket, and carefully and gently, he pushed his arms under Andrew’s body. He moved slow as he got up, to avoid jostling the injured man in his arms too much, but Andrew still groaned in pain. Neither of the warlocks dared to sedate him again, however, so Magnus just opened a portal, and they left the horrible place behind, as well as the corpses of Andrew’s torturers.

By the time Alec put him down on the infirmary bed Andrew seemed to be fully conscious; his eyes were open, but stared unseeingly at nothing. Lorenzo took one of his hands, but it was completely limp, and shaking his head, he leaned over him, searching his eyes. 

“Andrew?”

Even though Lorenzo’s face was right above his own, Andrew didn’t seem to see him. His eyes didn’t change, didn’t focus, as if Lorenzo wasn’t there. 

A nurse now gently pushed Lorenzo away and checked the reflexes of Andrew’s eyes with a lamp. The pupils contracted as they should, so his eyes weren’t the problem. 

“He’s... unresponsive,” Lorenzo said hesitantly. “He has not reacted to anything other than pain.”

“Complete catatonic state,” the nurse confirmed after running her finger down the inside of Andrew’s foot to see if his toes curled. “Reflexes are there.”

Lorenzo had to leave, as well as the others, so the medical personnel could do their job. He fell into the nearest chair of the conference table in the Ops centre, his elbow propped onto the table to support his head in his hand. 

After a moment he felt a hand on his shoulder, and then Magnus slid into the chair next to him. 

“He’s going to be okay,” Magnus said, trying to smile.

“Forgive me if I find myself unable to agree,” Lorenzo muttered and closed his eyes. The memories of the vacant stare in Andrew’s eyes made his skin crawl. 

This was what he had been afraid of since the first video they had sent him. That he would never get him back. He didn’t know yet of course, but by the way it looked, Andrew, his Andrew, the Andrew with the bright smile and easy laugh, was gone. They had broken him, and Lorenzo had been completely helpless, unable to prevent it.

He felt his eyes burn but tried to blink the tears away; he didn’t want to burst into tears right in the middle of the Institute, surrounded by Shadowhunters. He was unsuccessful however, he could feel the tear trickle down his cheek, and he saw it land on the table. 

A moment later a tissue appeared in his view. Lorenzo took it and wiped his eyes and nose, and looked up into Magnus’ face. There was nothing but compassion in his eyes.

“I’m sorry,” Magnus said softly. “But there’s hope. Still...” He sighed. “I... I wouldn’t want to be in your skin.”

Lorenzo crumpled the tissue in his hand. “Magnus, I don’t want to be in my skin, but I don’t have any choice about it.”

Magnus reached out and took one of Lorenzo’s hands, and surprised by the gesture Lorenzo looked up again. 

“He’s strong,” Magnus said, increasing the pressure of his hand around Lorenzo’s. “He will make it.”

“Even for the strongest man there’s only so much he can take,” Lorenzo replied, looking at the table again. 

“I admit it looks bad,” Magnus replied. “But he’s alive, and he will recover, physically at first, but... he has a chance now. There are a lot of things that can be done.”

Lorenzo shook his head without looking up, and only dimly registered the clicking of heels announcing Isabelle’s approach. A moment later a mug of coffee appeared in his view and was put down on the table in front of him. He forced himself to look up at her.

“Thank you,” he muttered.

Isabelle patted his shoulder. “Is there anything else we can do?”

Lorenzo closed his hands around the mug and shrugged. “I wouldn’t know what.”

Now Alec stepped to his sister’s side, and crossed his arms with a dark face. “Whitestone and Greenfield are in the know.”

“Good.” Isabelle’s face darkened, and the smile she gave Lorenzo now was one he wouldn’t want to be the recipient of. “There was a glitch in the security system, and there’s a chunk of surveillance data missing, from earlier today.”

“Yeah,” Alec added. “Now we don’t have any documentation anymore about the arrest of the warlocks. Damn.”

Lorenzo slowly looked at Alec, and back at Isabelle.

“Now we have no longer any proof that they’re really in the Institute,” Isabelle added, crossing her arms. “It would be entirely possible someone would think they resisted arrest and... couldn’t be taken alive.”

“But...” Lorenzo looked back and forth between them, feeling that there was something he should understand, but couldn’t quite grasp. 

“They should have faced the justice of the Clave, really,” Magnus now joined in, a dark smirk on his face. “Shame they got away.”

“Got away?” Lorenzo knew, technically, that no one would let them go, but still failed to catch on. He knew that there was something they were trying to tell him without telling him, but in his state, it went right over his head.

“What happened to them?” he finally dared to ask.

Magnus leaned forward, the smirk darkening into something outright evil. “No one knows,” he said in a low voice. “Not that the Gard would have been too good for them anyway.”

Now Lorenzo suddenly saw daylight. “So you mean...”

“Lorenzo,” Magnus said and leaned forward, “if you don’t want to go down there, I will. And I swear, no one will ever find their bodies. The Gard is definitely too good for them, and even if nothing will ever undo what they did to Andrew, they deserve more than being locked up or simply being executed.”

Lorenzo looked at him for a long, silent moment. “Revenge rarely is what we want it to be, and it won’t change a thing,” he said slowly. “However, I think I will greatly enjoy watching their untimely demise.”

Magnus nodded and got up. “I think we should be checking the wards in the basement. I heard there was a small disturbance the other day.”

Lorenzo got up as well. “Better make sure then that nothing got in that shouldn’t be here.”

Isabelle and Alec watched the two head for the elevator, and Alec gave them a small nod as the doors closed.

* * *

By the time Lorenzo returned to Andrew’s bedside the medics had done what they could for him. He was hooked up to an IV with fluids and painkillers, was cleaned up and made as comfortable as possible, his right leg protected by a tunnel-shaped cage under the blanket, no doubt because the stitches had been taken out, and the tissue was too swollen to sew it back together. His wrists were bandaged, and a soft bandage was also wrapped around his neck, but Lorenzo could see his Adam’s apple bob every time he swallowed. 

“I don’t think you want that there,” Lorenzo said softly and waved his fingers. His magic gently removed the bandage, and wisps of golden light healed the scrapes and sores on Andrew’s skin. His breathing slowed a little, but he was still staring at the ceiling with a completely unmoving face. 

Now Lorenzo took his hand, and another soft glow of magic healed the scrapes there too. “They’re all gone,” Lorenzo said, bringing the back of Andrew’s limp, cool hand to his cheek. “They’re gone, and I made sure they spent every moment in agony while dying at my hands for what they did to you.”

Andrew showed absolutely no reaction. 

“It’s over, Andrew.” Lorenzo’s voice was trembling. “It’s over. Please come back to me.”

If Andrew heard him, he gave no sign of it, and Lorenzo closed his eyes, Andrew’s hand pressed against his cheek.

* * *

Andrew remained in his catatonic state for several days, and Lorenzo spent every minute he could spare at his bedside. It was on the sixth day after his rescue that Isabelle approached him as he was on his way to the infirmary.

“Lorenzo? I need to speak with you.”

Lorenzo nodded, and after a look towards the infirmary he nodded and followed her to her office. Jace was already waiting there, and a few moments later Magnus and Alec portalled in. And only then did Lorenzo notice that there was a Silent Brother in the room as well.

“Lorenzo, we didn’t want to make this decision over your head, even if it’s technically not your business, with you not being a Shadowhunter.” Isabelle took a deep breath. “But we don’t think there’s another way for Andrew.”

“Explain.” Lorenzo crossed his arms, a knot of fear coagulating in his guts.

“We’ve spoken to Brother Enoch,” Isabelle explained. “Andrew’s mind is damaged, and Brother Enoch doesn’t think he can recover from that on his own either.”

Lorenzo swallowed. “And what does this mean?”

“It means that we should send him to the Silent City for treatment.”

“And by the way you’re all looking at me, there’s a problem.”

All eyes were on Magnus now, who had his chin between his fingers and now rubbed his thumb across his lower lip before looking up again. 

“Not everyone who goes into the Silent City for treatment comes back again,” Magnus said eventually, and very hesitantly. “I don’t know the ins and outs of it, but sometimes, they... change.”

“Change how,” Lorenzo asked, and it took him everything not to scream the question at Magnus.

“Do you remember Brother Zachariah? The one who married us?”

Lorenzo nodded, lips pressed tightly together. 

“He was a Shadowhunter once, who went there to get treatment for... he was in a bad state.” Magnus closed his eyes for a moment, and opened them again, shaking his head. 

“And he...” Lorenzo’s voice didn’t obey him, and he had to clear his throat a few times. “He’s a...”

“A Silent Brother, but... not an actual Silent Brother,” Magnus explained. “It’s kind of... a lay brother.”

“But it... doesn’t have to happen, right?” Lorenzo was unable to keep a slight trace of panic from his voice.

“No, it doesn’t,” Magnus replied. “But the worse the problem is, the likelier it is that... that they don’t come back.”

Lorenzo didn’t know what to reply, because yelling at everyone that he wasn’t going to lose Andrew wasn’t an option. So he gritted his teeth instead and tried to calm his breathing.

“The problem is,” Isabelle began, her voice as gentle as possible, “that there’s nothing else that can help him. If he is ever to heal, then the Silent Brothers are his only chance.”

Lorenzo licked his lips and closed his eyes, taking a deep breath. Then he looked at Isabelle again. “You said you didn’t want to make this decision without me. What if I say no?”

Isabelle pursed her lips, shaking her head with an unhappy frown. “Then we would send him anyway, but we’d rather do so with your blessing.”

“Then it won’t make a difference if I say yes or no, so why ask me in the first place?”

“Lorenzo.” Magnus stepped to his side. 

“I know!” He snapped his mouth shut and closed his eyes. “Sorry. I’m not...”

“Don’t apologize.” Magnus rested a hand on his shoulder. “It’s... it’s not easy.”

Lorenzo managed to meet his eyes, and while he had never felt so vulnerable and weak, he couldn’t hide it from Magnus and discovered to his dismay that he didn’t even want to.

“I don’t want to lose him,” he said in a small voice.

“Lorenzo,” Magnus replied with infinite gentleness. “You already lost him. This is the only chance to get him back.”

Lorenzo closed his eyes and dropped his head. It was a truth he had shied away from so far, but hearing it spoken out loud, he felt his heart break into a thousand pieces.

* * *

Nobody said anything when Lorenzo needed almost half an hour to say what might well be a final goodbye to Andrew, sitting at his bedside, holding his hand, telling him in a tearful voice how much he loved him and begging him to come home to him. The fact that Andrew showed no reaction whatsoever was final proof that there was only one way, and eventually, Lorenzo had to let him go. 

He didn’t want to watch them take him away though, so he portalled home as soon as he left the infirmary. Standing alone and forlorn in the downstairs lounge he looked around, and walked across the room to the bookshelf. There was a framed photograph, the two of them pressing their cheeks together to fit into the picture Andrew was taking with his phone. Lorenzo remembered that weekend they had spent in a small holiday cottage at the Spanish coast close to Bilbao only too well. It had been their first vacation together. 

The picture in hand he took a step back, and another one. Then he fell into the sofa, and went utterly and completely to pieces.


	13. Recovery

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm... sorry?

Pain  
Terror  
Darkness

_…I can’t breathe…_

Blood, so much blood

_…let me wake up…_

_…please…_

_…let me go…_

He couldn’t breathe

_…please let me go…_

Agony

_…please let me go…_

Fear

_...I can’t see..._

He couldn’t breathe

_…please let me wake up…_

So much pain

_…no…_

_…please…_

Horror  
Loss  
Sorrow

_…don’t take him away from me…_

_…please…_

_… don’t take him away from me…_

_…please don’t take him…_

_…please…_

* * *

He was lost in a moment of utter disorientation as he opened his eyes.

The last thing he remembered was being locked up in a cave somewhere shackled to a chair. And now he was…

In a room, on a bed. A room with a window.

Andrew sat up and looked around in confusion. The room swam a little so he closed his eyes and took a deep breath, and when he opened them again the world had steadied around him.

The room wasn’t large, and furnished simply, the colour scheme white and grey. His bed stood in the middle of the room, head end to a wall. A wardrobe to the right, a small nightstand on the left side, between the bed and the window. There was a door in wall opposite him, right to that a table and a chair. Another door opposite the window, and above that, a row of runes etched into the door frame. It didn’t look like a hospital or infirmary room, but he had no idea where he was and how he had gotten here.

Looking down at himself he saw he was wearing some sort of hospital gown, and there was still a cannula sitting in the back of his hand, although there was no IV stand in sight. He took a deep breath, exhaled the air again in a long, soft breath, and pulled the blanket away from his leg.

The wound was covered with just a large, rectangular adhesive bandage. No blood, no swelling and no pain, just a dull ache when he tried to move the leg.

How long had he been out, for god’s sake?

He fell back into the pillow and closed his eyes, trying to sort through his still somewhat jumbled memories. He had been kidnapped, pulled into a portal. A stab wound in his leg in his attempt to escape. Shackled to a chair. Gagged. Choked. He shuddered and opened his eyes.

He remembered the pain, and a burning thirst, and he remembered being stripped and shorn. And already those memories were not very clear.

But after that it all got blurry.

He remembered nightmares about darkness, pain, choking... and terrible, terrible loss.

But those memories were as evasive as fish in a basin. He tried to grasp them, but they dissolved the moment he felt them, falling apart like drying sand, running through his fingers, dissipating into nothing and only leaving a strange, aching emptiness behind.

He could definitely remember being afraid he would go mad any moment, shackled to that chair in the darkness. He was also comparatively sure he had crossed that line at one point, because from the time he had been shorn, nothing made sense anymore. Until he had just woken up here, wherever that was.

Andrew sat up again, and turned towards the window. His left foot touched the ground, then his right one, and then he carefully got up, his weight on his left leg for now. Then he put his right foot down, and discovered that the leg could support his weight easily enough, even if it felt sore when he tried to take a step.

He hobbled the two steps towards the window, and pulled the curtains aside. He could see a meadow, bushes, shrubs, trees, and a path leading towards a chain of hills, or mountains further away. Squinting against the bright horizon, he thought he could see a tower.

He was in Idris.

At that moment the door opened, and Andrew quickly spun around to face the door, because he was still only wearing that ridiculous hospital gown.

The young woman who entered was wearing a knee-length grey dress, belted in white. She smiled warmly at him, her eyes crinkling at the corners.

“Don’t worry,” she said, “there’s nothing I haven’t seen before.”

Andrew lifted his eyebrows with a wry, crooked smile. “And that’s supposed to make me feel better how?”

She chuckled again, and walked towards the corner of the room with the table and chair. Now Andrew noticed the camera there that was trained on the bed, but the nurse, or whatever she was, reached up and switched it off, and then pointedly pulled a flap down to cover it.

“My name is Elena,” she said as she turned around again. “I can imagine you have a lot of questions.”

“Yeah...” He looked around again. “Where am I, exactly?”

“The asylum,” she replied, and when she saw Andrew’s face fall apart in shock, she quickly continued, “but don’t worry, most of the people who come here also leave again. And I can say already from how you’re talking to me that you’re one of them.”

Andrew crossed his arms and nodded, taking a deep breath. “So... what happened, and what happens next?”

“As to what happened, I can’t tell you much.” She shrugged. “I know you came here from the Silent City. But there’s someone who will talk to you about that. As to what happens now?” She pointed at the wardrobe. “You’ll find clothes there, and you can leave your room anytime. There is a garden, but you’ll first be given clearance to leave the house after that talk I mentioned.”

The she opened the door. “Down left is the kitchen and dining room, that way is a library, and right opposite your room is the balcony, in case you need some air. The examination rooms and suchlike are downstairs, but I’ll fetch you when it’s your turn. There’s a bathroom behind that door. Is there anything else I can help you with at this point?

“I don’t think so,” Andrew said, and looked around again. He would have to take it one step at a time.

“Right.” Elena smiled at him. “I’ll see you later.”

“Thanks.”

Andrew stared at the closed door for a moment, but then decided that he would be able to tackle all this much better without his butt on display and the lads dangling around in the breeze. He opened the wardrobe and found briefs and socks, sweatpants, T-shirts, and a zipped hoodie, all grey but soft and comfortable, so no reason to complain. And getting into the pants wasn’t a problem either with his leg, so he really had been out for at least two weeks, likely even more.

He slowly crossed the room favouring his right leg, and entered the bathroom. Minimalistic too, toilet, shower, sink, but absolutely enough. It was when he caught sight of himself in the mirror that he froze, and not because of the short, irregular stubble covering his head.

There was a rune on the left side of his face, from the corner of his eye down to almost his chin, one curve stretching out half an inch along the cheekbone right below the eye socket. He turned his head to look at it, but he had never seen that rune before, not even on Brother Zachariah whose facial runes looked very different from this. No doubt the Silent Brothers had put it there, and he knew that they never did anything like that without a good reason but... on his face?

Well, there was nothing he could do about that. And so, with a shrug, Andrew utilised the bathroom and then left his room to have a look around, and maybe even find some food and coffee. He encountered two other men and one woman, but they all avoided any eye contact and Andrew didn’t approach them. The whole institution was very homely and comfortable and comforting, and after a generous helping of cereals, he settled down on a bench on the balcony with his coffee, holding his face into the sun.

So he had been in the Silent City for treatment, which meant that his assumption about having crossed the border towards madness had been right. You didn’t get sent there because of a few nightmares, but he couldn’t remember a single thing, not even how he had gotten out of that cave. He was sure though to eventually get answers to all those questions, and then he wondered how long he would have to stay here before he was allowed to go back to New York.

If he would be allowed to go back. Pressing his lips together, Andrew stared at the peaks of the mountains in the distance. After what happened, after having been in the Silent City, was he still considered fit for duty? Elena had told him he wouldn’t have to stay in the asylum, but if he wasn’t allowed to come back to his old job in the Institute, then what was he supposed to do?

But like with the rune, there wasn’t anything he could do about that; he had to wait until he had that talk with a doctor, or a psychologist, or whatever the person was who would decide about his fate. And after another moment he got up, got himself a refill, and headed for the library.

* * *

An exceptionally fast recovery, to a surprising degree, they had told Andrew, and he had been informed that very few people in his situation had come back as balanced and recovered as he had. Highly resilient, and strong, they had called him. Andrew remembered having begged the angels for a quick death instead of embracing his fate, but he didn’t count his blessings.

And after a few days more, and a few performance tests, he had been cleared fit for duty, with certain restrictions in the beginning. Only on-site duty for six weeks. And after that, report in for a consultation each time after the first ten patrols, but not in person, a video chat would sufficient. That would be followed by a six month phase of reporting in once a month, and if everything was still in the green, he was good to go.

He hadn’t been allowed contact with anyone during the time in the asylum however, so until the Institute was informed about his recovery and that he would be sent back, no one in New York had had any idea about his mental state or his whereabouts. And unsurprisingly, Andrew felt a little nervous, but in a good way, as he shook hands with his supervisor for the last time before stepping into the portal.

They hadn’t given the Institute any advance warning however, just the information that Andrew would be coming back, so when he stepped out of the portal there was no one there waiting for him. It wasn’t disappointing because he knew how crazily busy things could be in the Institute, and he also knew that no one had been informed prior to the portal. Or, a few minutes prior, which didn’t make much of a difference.

Now he could see Isabelle leave the elevator, phone pressed against her ear. “Yes... Oh my god, he’s here! See you in a bit, Magnus!”

Slipping her phone back into her pocket she broke into almost a run, and threw her arms around him with a small sob of joy. Andrew had to admit he hadn’t expected that, but he closed his arms around her anyway.

“Oh my god, it’s so good to see you again,” Isabelle muttered, and after a moment, she leaned back, tears on her cheeks. Then she saw the rune, and met his eyes again with a questioning frown.

“I don’t know what that is, either.” Andrew could only shrug. “I woke up with that thing on my face, so I got that in the Silent City. I suppose the Silent Brothers had their reasons.”

Isabelle smiled again. “It’s a bit weird, but we’ll get used to it.” She stepped back and took his hands. “We’re so happy to have you back.”

“It feels good to be back.” Andrew smiled at her and looked around. “Though I don’t really know...”

A portal opened in the middle of the Ops centre, and Alec didn’t waste any time in crossing the room and pulling Andrew into a rib-cracking hug. And when he finally let Andrew go, he had tears in his eyes too.

“God, Andrew, we thought we’d never see you again.” He smiled and shook his head. “You were in a terrible state when... when you left.”

“I can’t remember a thing, so I know it must have been bad.” Andrew looked at Magnus who now offered him both his hands, and Andrew took them. “I can’t even remember how I got out of that cave.”

“We can clear that one up,” Magnus replied with a smile, eyes moist. “But that’s not the priority. There’s someone who can’t wait to see you again.”

“Yeah,” Alec added with another nod. “Lorenzo is going to be over the moon having you back.”

“Lorenzo?”

On cue, another portal opened before Alec could answer that question, and the man who jumped out of the portal had the frazzled appearance of someone who has been torn out of deep sleep by a truck horn.

“Andrew!” He raced across the room, his eyes impossibly wide and filled with tears, an incredulous, almost fearful smile on his face. “Andrew... oh my god, I thought...” He came to a halt, but froze when Andrew took a step back to avoid the unexpected embrace that had been about to happen. His face lost all colour. “Andrew?”

Andrew looked around, into a lot of dismayed faces, and back at the man before him who looked as if he had been shot dead and forgotten to fall over.

He took another small step back, uncomfortably aware of all eyes on him. “I’m sorry... but... who are you?”


	14. Embrace

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I really hope taking that ride with me was worth it. Thank you all!

Lorenzo Rey.

A gust of cold wind made him shudder, and Andrew pulled up the collar of his leather jacket before slipping his hands back into his pockets.

High Warlock of Brooklyn.

And there it was again, the sting in the left side of his face. Andrew looked up and around, but no one was near enough to have heard his surprised hiss of pain. Not that it hurt overly much, but it was very unpleasant, like the touch of a stinging nettle.

A few droplets of water pattered down on the shoulders of the jacket and more landed in his hair, but Andrew ducked his head and faced the wind and the rain with gritted teeth. His mind wandered back a few hours, to the Ops centre of the Institute.

After a moment of shocked silence, Magnus, Alec and Isabelle had settled Andrew down in her office, equipped him with a coffee, and tried to explain. Lorenzo had tagged along like a forgotten afterthought, quite obviously unable to be somewhere else, but not daring to breathe into Andrew’s general direction. It had been nerve-grating, because of how obvious it had been that Andrew was supposed to know that man. And more than that.

Magnus had asked him a few questions about the time he had spent in the cave. And now it all made sense, that he could remember some parts crystal-clear, while other bits were completely blurry.

For some reason, the Silent Brothers had erased every memory regarding Lorenzo Rey from his mind. Andrew hadn’t understood, but it had become very obvious after a few attempts of talking about Lorenzo. Because every time Magnus tried to engage in the topic, the rune on Andrew’s face began to burn. Not only were all the memories erased, the rune prevented him from even thinking about the fact that there had been memories at all.

The rune was burning again right now, just because Andrew was thinking about the warlock... about Lorenzo.

Lorenzo Rey.

High Warlock of Brooklyn.

And supposedly, the love of his life.

You could have knocked him out with a feather when Isabelle had told him that. And he hadn’t dared to look at the man across the room, who had been standing with his back to them all, staring out of the window.

_Andrew, what do you remember about our wedding?_ Alec had asked.

_It was a beautiful ceremony,_ Andrew had replied. _And a beautiful couple. It was so touching, and everyone was so happy. It was, sadly, also the occasion Clary disappeared, but thankfully we got her back._

_And what did you do?_ Mangus had asked.

_Drink, and talked to people? There were a lot of people._

_You also talked to Lorenzo,_ Magnus said, and the rune had stung so hard Andrew had doubled over.

Alec had mentioned Hodge and the Circle rune, and honestly, if that was how Hodge had felt, Andrew could suddenly find a shred of sympathy for the man.

So, apparently he hadn’t only been forced to forget Lorenzo, he was also prevented from even thinking about him. About the past. But he couldn’t help imagining the man before his inner eyes, the sharp profile, the black hair swept back in the sleek, flawless ponytail... it could make him almost forget the sting of pain.

Well, to be perfectly honest, Andrew could understand his past self, and could even congratulate past him for making such a catch. Lorenzo was one of the most attractive men Andrew had ever met, but even thinking about him made the rune burn again. Andrew walked faster, furiously desperate to get this over with.

The rain picked up in earnest now and he was drenched by the time he had reached the entrance of the City of Bones. He had to wipe droplets from his face, and fuck if it didn’t still feel weird to try and brush back his hair and finding none.

With his footsteps the only sounds, and the torches the only source of light, Andrew descended the stairs into the silence and darkness until he had reached the large room in the very heart of the City of Bones. A Silent Brother was already waiting for him, and not because Andrew had announced his decision to come here.

**ANDREW UNDERHILL. WHAT IS IT YOU SEEK?**

“I... I’d like to know what happened to my memories.” Andrew nervously licked his lips. “I mean, those very specific memories of a man who is... who is supposed to be someone very important, but not only can’t I remember him, I can’t even think about him without this,” he pointed at the rune, “burning my skin.”

Another Silent Brother entered the room now as well, and he and the first one seemed to have a conversation of sorts between them. Andrew slipped his hands in his pockets, pulled them out again, and cursed his nervous habit of tucking back his hair because he hated the sensation of touching only stubble. And why was that the thing that he keyed himself up about? As if he didn’t have any other problems right now.

The second Silent Brother now faced Andrew again, and the first one left.

**I AM BROTHER ENOCH. I SUPERVISED YOUR HEALING.**

“And I’m grateful you did, but...” Andrew cleared his throat. “Why did you take the memories of Lorenzo Rey?” He blinked a few times trying to ignore the sting. “And why am I not even allowed to think about him?”

**YOUR MIND WAS SEVERELY DAMAGED, ALMOST BEYOND REPAIR. AND YET, DESPITE WHAT YOU HAD BEEN PUT THROUGH, YOUR THOUGHTS WERE ON HIM. YOU WERE SO CONSUMED BY GUILT AND GRIEF THAT NOT ONLY DID IT PREVENT HEALING, IT WAS MAKING THE DAMAGE WORSE. WE HAD NO CHOICE BUT LOCK THOSE MEMORIES AWAY. IT WAS THE ONLY WAY YOUR MIND COULD HEAL.**

“Guilt?” And the rune was burning again. “What... why...?”

**THE REASONS ARE LOCKED AWAY, AND HAVE TO REMAIN LOCKED AWAY. TO REOPEN THAT DOOR WOULD MEAN RISKING YOUR ENTIRE HEALING PROCESS.**

Andrew stared at Brother Enoch with parted lips, his throat going dry. Coming here, he had been determined to get the memories back somehow. But he remembered the dreams, or what must have been the memories of his treatment in the Silent City. And if that was what awaited him if he got rid of the rune...

“Is there no way to deal with this? I mean...” He lifted his hands, and dropped them again. “I am healed, right? A set of memories can’t just catapult me back into madness, can it?”

**THERE WERE LIVING NIGHTMARES BURIED IN YOUR MIND THAT EVEN WE COULD NOT REACH. AND ALL THAT STANDS BETWEEN YOU AND THEM CONSUMING YOUR SOUL IS THAT RUNE.**

Defeat settled on his shoulders like a heavy blanket. Shaking his head Andrew stared at his feet, and up again at Brother Enoch, but he didn’t have anything else to say. He just about remembered to thank him for his help, and headed back towards the gates and the world of the living with slow and heavy steps.

* * *

Isabelle had been stricken when Andrew had told her he had been to the City of Bones to speak with a Silent Brother and what he had been told. She also asked him several times if there was anything she could do, but Andrew could only shrug. In the end, he had found himself a coffee and had retreated to his room.

For all that he had tried to think of, what he hadn’t expected was that the on-site duty would break his neck. Patrols causing flashbacks, nightmares, or anything else, that, he could have dealt with.

But being unable to do his job when the High Warlock was around – which he frequently was, what with the Downworld Council and the wards – how was he supposed to handle that?

There wasn’t a way to handle that, as it turned out.

“I was afraid something like this might happen,” his supervisor in Idris said when they had their first consultation. “But we dared to hope it wouldn’t be this bad.”

“And what am I supposed to do about that now?” Andrew adjusted the tablet, staring at the screen with gritted teeth. “Avoid the High Warlock of Brooklyn like the plague?”

“We both know that’s not an option,” the supervisor said. “For now, you’re off duty until further notice.”

“You can’t do that!”

“Underhill, you’re on thin ice.” His lips were a tight line. “The damage to your mind has been healed, not undone. And we have to decide on a course of action that’s best for you.”

Andrew swallowed, and tried to keep at least outwardly calm. His voice however was not nearly as steady as he would have liked. “Please, don’t take me off active duty. This is all I’ve ever known, and wanted to do.”

“We shall see.” The supervisor’s face softened a little. “It’s not as if I don’t understand. But there are a lot of factors to be taken into account here and in the end, it’s your health that we have to take care of.”

“Of course,” Andrew replied, although he would have rather screamed at him to stop treating him like a child.

They ended the call shortly after that, and not much later Isabelle entered his office, her face tight, her eyes filled with both anger and sadness.

“I tried,” she said, with no explanation needed. “I really tried. But they didn’t listen to me.”

“So what next?” Andrew asked without looking up.

“I don’t know. For now we have to do as they say, but I’ll talk with Magnus as soon as he has a moment.”

“And what do you suppose Magnus can do?”

“Maybe nothing,” Isabelle replied. “But maybe he knows something, or knows someone. Maybe there’s something else we can do for your mind.”

Andrew could only shrug.

* * *

The transposition order arrived the very next day. And while Andrew really, really didn’t want to leave New York, it seemed to be the lesser evil if the alternative was being no longer able to perform on active duty.

He had a drink with Isabelle, Clary, Jace, and Simon the night before he left. Lorenzo wasn’t there, not that Andrew could blame him, but Magnus and Alec were even if they technically didn’t need to, as Andrew living in London wouldn’t change anything for them.

London, however, brought up a bunch of other problems. Or rather, one problem, and that problem was Andrew Underhill. Or more precise, the rune on Underhill’s face. A livid reminder of what he had been through, and a big red sign that said: Hey I’ve been damaged but now I’m glued back together again so it should be okay!

Or that’s at least how the other Shadowhunters in the London Institute were acting.

In the end, it only meant nobody trusted him to have their back in a pinch because he would curl up into a ball as soon as the going got rough. They only saw the damage, not the fact that he had healed.

He made it six weeks before the Head of the Institute had to inform him that she had to keep her Institute in order and her front line soldiers calm, and didn’t have to say that the reason she couldn’t do that was Andrew and that angel-cursed rune.

The next transposition order sent him to Hong Kong where he made it all of three months before the Head of the Institute had to fold under the increasing pressure from his Shadowhunters, none of which wanted to be on patrol with him.

But even before he got the transposition order to Canberra Andrew knew that he was done. There was only so much of this humiliation he could take, and it was very obvious that while he might be fit for front line duty, he wasn’t able to perform anymore. Not because of him. Because of the prejudice and fears prevalent in a society where you were supposed to either end up victorious or dead, not broken.

He shouldered his duffel bag and didn’t look back before stepping into the portal.

* * *

“Canberra?” Lorenzo put his fork down, and looked at Alec like he wasn’t sure Alec wasn’t taking him for a ride.

“I found out today,” Alec replied, and shook his head. “I’ve been following up, you know, to see how he’s doing. But he’s been pushed from Institute to Institute like a hot potato. I even contacted the Consul about it but she didn’t have anything to say other than, and I quote,” Alec took a deep breath and exhaled with a huff, “they tried to keep him in active duty but it clearly didn’t work out.”

“What did he do wrong?” Isabelle asked and looked around.

They were all sitting around a nicely laid table, a little get-together dinner that usually happened when Alec and Magnus were visiting New York. This time they had met at Lorenzo’s mansion, enjoying a large dish of Paella, homemade from scratch, without magic. With those news however, appetites seemed to plummet.

“Nothing,” Alec replied. “The only thing I can think of is that nobody trusts him and whoever has to be on patrol with him doesn’t put it past him to break down with a flashback as soon as something happens. There is no other explanation why the Heads of London and Hong Kong requested his transposition without a single incident report.”

“Poor Andrew,” Clary said after a moment, her voice laced with both sadness and anger. “Is there nothing we could do?” She looked at Magnus however, as if hoping he could somehow solve this dilemma.

“I’m afraid this isn’t a problem that can be solved by magic, Biscuit.” Magnus looked at Lorenzo who was staring at his plate with a stony face.

“It’s the rune, isn’t it?” Clary asked then, looking around. “It’s because of the rune on his face that everyone thinks there’s something wrong with him and that he’s a liability.”

“I’m afraid that is the problem,” Magnus replied with a sigh and a shake of his head. “But I don’t know what we could do to help him.”

“I just wish there was a way to get him back,” Isabelle now said.

“There’s a reason why that isn’t possible,” Lorenzo said, looking up. “And that reason is me.”

“But...” Clary tilted her head. “I thought you might want him back?”

“There is no getting him back,” Lorenzo replied, his voice sharp-edged like broken glass. “All I wanted was for him to heal, for him to be Andrew again, and not that broken, shattered soul I said goodbye to, when he was about to be sent to the Silent City. And it worked.” He gritted his teeth for a moment, and his voice was slightly rough when he continued. “He can smile again, and that’s all I ever wanted, even if I will never be the recipient of that smile again.”

“Why never?” Clary asked him with a tiny shake of her head.

“Because looking at me causes him physical pain.” Lorenzo folded his hands onto the table. “I was relieved, in a way, that he was sent away, so he wouldn’t have to fight that pain anymore.”

“But it didn’t really make it better,” Isabelle said with a frustrated sigh.

“And there is no way to get rid of that rune?” Clary looked at Isabelle. “He talked about that with a Silent Brother, right? Didn’t you mention something?”

“He did,” Isabelle replied, her voice heavy. “And the answer he got was that removing the rune would risk losing the entire healing process. If I remember correctly, they told him that they had to lock the memories away because they were like... nightmares, monsters that would be devouring his soul, and the only thing between them and Andrew is that rune.”

Jace dropped his fork. “And why for the love of the Angel are memories of Lorenzo nightmares that devour him?”

Lorenzo was gritting his teeth so hard it was audible on the other side of the table.

“I don’t know.” Isabelle exhaled through her nose with a sigh. “But apparently there wasn’t another way to deal with those... monsters.”

“So...” Clary shook her head with an angry, frustrated pout. “Basically, he’s fucked with the rune, and he’s fucked without it.”

“Not a nice way of putting it, Biscuit, but the plain truth, I’m afraid.”

They all looked at each other in painful, helpless silence.

* * *

Andrew had requested transposition to Idris himself this time, but after only a few days he was left with no doubt that a job in the archives would drive him to madness as sure as removing the rune would have done.

He was a warrior. Not someone who shuffled papers, printed reports, and archived letters.

Now he was losing more and more sleep, was losing weight too because he had no appetite and couldn’t bring himself to eat, and in general felt as if he wanted to crawl out of his own skin.

Trying to get ready for another dreadful day he looked into the mirror that morning, and looked at a man at the end of his tether. His face was gaunt, and so pale the rune stood out in stark contrast against his skin. His eyes sunken and deeply shadowed, lines carved around his mouth. He looked like a man easily twice his age, and he felt as if he had aged several decades, too.

This wouldn’t do. He couldn’t go on like this.

So instead of heading to work he left Alicante on a path leading to darkness, not knowing if he would ever see the light of day again, but not caring about the answer.

He supposed one of the three Silent Brothers that greeted him was Brother Enoch, but it was difficult to tell them apart.

**WHAT IS IT YOU SEEK?**

“I need to get rid of that rune,” Andrew replied, and he would be lying if he said he wasn’t afraid. Because he was. But he was more afraid by now of what would happen if he went on like this.

**WE TOLD YOU WHY WE CANNOT DO THAT.**

“Yes, you did. But... I can’t go on like this.” He ran his fingers through his hair. “I can’t go on like this! This rune makes me a pariah in everyone’s eyes! No one thinks I can still be a warrior! No one trusts me with anything, least of all standing my ground in a fight! I’m rendered totally and utterly useless!”

**REMOVING THE RUNE MIGHT WELL DESTROY YOU, ANDREW UNDERHILL.**

“I am destroyed already!” Andrew all but screamed at them. “Yes, so there are monsters hidden behind that rune! But I don’t care! I don’t care about monsters anymore! Nothing can be worse than this, and if I really go mad and end up here or in the asylum at least then there’s a bloody reason why I’m not a Shadowhunter anymore!”

The Silent Brothers seemed to exchange what counted for looks between them, or maybe they were holding a conversation. After a moment however, the all looked at him again.

**DO YOU REALLY WISH TO SET THOSE DEMONS FREE?**

“I will fucking embrace them!” Andrew felt hot tears on his cheek, but he didn’t care anymore. “I want that rune gone! And if I can’t be a Shadowhunter anymore then at least I want the memories back of a man who’s supposed to be the love of my life!” He wiped a hand across his eyes, then across his nose.

His outburst was followed by a long moment of silence. And finally, one of the Silent Brothers nodded and stepped aside.

**FOLLOW ME.**

* * *

Andrew had dealt with pain. He had dealt with more pain than he thought was possible. He had been in such pain before that he had wondered how anyone could feel that much pain and still be alive afterwards.

It was nothing compared to this.

He screamed and screamed until he was so hoarse he could hardly make a sound anymore.

It all ended in darkness.

Blissful, silent darkness

* * *

“So...” Clary shook her head with an angry, frustrated pout. “Basically, he’s fucked with the rune, and he’s fucked without it.”

“Not a nice way of putting it, Biscuit, but the plain truth, I’m afraid.”

They all looked at each other in painful, helpless silence.

The ringtone of Magnus’ phone cut through that silence like a knife, and more than one person flinched. Magnus needed to take two deep breaths before he could answer.

“Yes.”

He listened, and his face lost all colour. After a moment, he lowered the phone. Took a few deep breaths. He shuddered, and opened a portal without another word. And before anyone could say a word, he was gone.

“What the...” Alec looked at the spot where Magnus had just vanished.

As did everyone else.

In the dead silence, the ticking of Lorenzo’s antique grandfather clock was so nerve-gratingly loud that Lorenzo stopped it with an irritated snap of his fingers.

And the silence continued.

Eventually Isabelle couldn’t stand it anymore and got up, and began to collect the used plates and cutlery. Clary joined her after a moment, and Jace took the Paella dish to the kitchen while Alec slowly moved places and sat down in the chair next to Lorenzo.

He was staring at the table before him, both hands curled into fists so hard his knuckles were white.

“Please don’t try any attempts of telling me it will be okay.”

“I wasn’t going to,” Alec replied in a low voice. “I’m just here so you don’t hurt yourself.”

“Why would I?” Lorenzo scoffed, and looked at him, a glare that made his eyes burn.

“It happened to Magnus before,” Alec said simply.

Lorenzo stared at him for a moment longer, and then his eyes fell shut, his shoulders slumped, and shaking his head, he leaned forward onto his elbows.

A portal appeared at the other end of the room, and both Alec and Lorenzo jumped out of their chairs while the others all but stormed out of the kitchen.

Magnus stepped out of the portal with a hesitant smile, and behind him...

Pale-faced and red-eyed, Andrew looked like a man who has been crying his eyes out for hours. And then he looked up.

The rune was gone.

Lorenzo took a step towards him, his face as pale as Andrew’s. He blinked furiously, to no avail, and he stared at Andrew with trembling lips and tears glistening on his cheeks.

“There...” Andrew voice was hoarse. “There are no monsters.”

Lorenzo swallowed and slowly, tilted his head a little.

“There are no monsters,” Andrew said again. “There... there were monsters. There have been monsters, but... they’re not monsters anymore. They’re shadows. They’re nothing.”

“I don’t... understand,” Lorenzo whispered huskily.

“The memories they locked away,” Andrew replied, wiping the back of his hand across his eyes. “They called them nightmares that would devour my soul, they called them monsters of guilt and grief that threatened to destroy me... but they’re... they’re not there anymore.”

Lorenzo took another slow, hesitant step, but then dared to come no further.

“The guilt,” Andrew said, and now looked at Lorenzo. “The grief. They made me watch, Lorenzo. They made me watch how they took your magic. They made me watch the whole thing, and left me believing that I...” His voice broke, and tears were running down his cheeks. “They made me believe that I destroyed you. That I was the reason you lost a part of your soul and would never be whole again.”

“But you didn’t,” Lorenzo whispered.

“I didn’t,” Andrew said, and barely managed to suppress a sob. It broke free from his throat anyway when a faint, golden light appeared around Lorenzo’s hands. “I didn’t,” he whispered, his voice hardly recognisable, tears dripping down his chin. “I didn’t...”

Now he took a step forward, and with tears running down his cheeks Lorenzo did the same. Another step, and another moment’s trepidation before they closed the distance between them.

And then they had their arms around each other, pulling each other close, pressing against each other as if they were trying to meld together. Both in tears, digging their fingers into each other’s clothing, pulling closer, and holding on, so desperately holding on for dear life as if they were both afraid the other might vanish into thin air if they let go.

“I’m so sorry,” Lorenzo sobbed into Andrew’s shoulder. “I’m so sorry... you went through all of that because of me...”

“No,” Andrew replied, his voice hardly carrying. “No, I went through all of that because of them. Nothing of this was your fault, and I never held a single thing against you. And I never will.”

With that he dropped a soft kiss into Lorenzo’s hair and pulled him even closer, and Lorenzo buried his face into Andrew’s shoulder with another rusty sob.

At the other end of the room, Magnus discreetly cast a portal, and one by one they vanished, all with tears on their cheeks or in their eyes. Andrew ad Lorenzo were left alone, but they had been unaware of anything or anyone else from the moment they had touched again.

And they kept holding on to each other, unwilling to let go, unwilling to break the contact even for a moment. Eventually though Andrew leaned back a little, and nudged Lorenzo’s temple with his forehead. It took him a moment, but after a moment Lorenzo was able to peel his face away from Andrew’s shoulder.

Andrew immediately leaned forward so their foreheads touched. “I never got the chance to tell you that before,” he whispered softly. “I love you.”

Lorenzo swallowed. “I did, but I don’t think you heard me.” He swallowed, a small and tearful smile on his face. “I love you.” Then he reached out and rested his hand on the side of Andrew’s face, the place where the rune had been.

“It’s not over,” Andrew whispered. “The monsters are gone, but everything else... is still there.”

Lorenzo tilted his head with a soft, inquisitive hum, his thumb caressing Andrew’s cheekbone.

“I’m not... magically restored. There will be flashbacks.” Andrew swallowed. “There will be nightmares. And...”

“Andrew.” Lorenzo leaned a little closer. “We will see you through. We will get through everything. Together.”

Andrew smiled at him through his tears, and cupped Lorenzo’s cheek in turn when more tears rose in his eyes and ran down his cheek.

“I missed you,” Lorenzo said in a suffocated whisper. “I missed you so much...”

“I missed you too,” Andrew whispered back. “Even though I couldn’t remember you. There was just... some sort of aching, empty space, and I didn’t know what it was but... It was where you should have been.”

Lorenzo looked up at him, and curled his fingers for a gentle tug. Andrew leaned closer, and they closed their eyes as their lips touched, a kiss so soft it was hardly there. Their lips touched again, firmer this time, and again, open lips sliding softly against lips, soft and tender and almost shy, as if it was their very first kiss.

And when they broke the kiss they immediately had their arms around each other again. They held on, one of Andrew’s hand running up and down Lorenzo’s back, one of Lorenzo’s hand curling into the hair at the back of Andrew’s head.

They were still reluctant to let go, and when they eventually leaned back from each other again, they still clasped each other’s hands.

“Do you...” Lorenzo began, his voice breaking so he had to clear his throat. “Do you need anything? Food? A coffee?”

Andrew shook his head with a soft smile. “No. Right now, I only want to lie down somewhere and hold you.”

Lorenzo blinked the moisture out of his eyes and cast a portal, and with a soft chuckle, hardly more than a breath of air, Andrew followed the tug of his hand.

The stepped into the bedroom, and this time Andrew actually chuckled. “We could have just walked up the stairs.”

“We could have,” Lorenzo said, resting both hands on either side of Andrew’s neck. “But it would have taken too long.”

Their eyes met, their smiled vanished, and this time their kiss was no longer shy, no longer soft and hesitant. It wasn’t wild and open-mouthed hunger either, it was soft and passionate and filled with the yearning they both had been through during their time apart. Not letting go of each other they sank down onto the bed.

“I want to feel you,” Andrew whispered, a trace of urgency in his voice.

Lorenzo waved his fingers, and their shirts vanished in a flicker of gold. “Is this okay?” he asked hesitantly, searching Andrew’s eyes.

“Why shouldn’t it be?” Andrew asked back, running a hand through Lorenzo’s hair, to undo the ribbon that held his ponytail together.

“You’ve been undressed by magic before against your will and-”

Andrew silenced him with a kiss, and leaned back again with a smile. “It wasn’t your magic.”

Their eyes met again.

“I love you,” Lorenzo whispered, losing his fight against the tears.

“Love you too.” Andrew dug his fingers into Lorenzo’s hair to comb it down, spread it around his face. “My beautiful warlock.”

Lorenzo shook his head with a tearful little chuckle. “Come here,” he whispered, and Andrew complied.

They had their arms around each other again, kissing, their hands roaming each other’s skin, and the last of their clothes dissolved in another breath of golden magic. Yet there was hardly any arousal, there was just skin on skin, a slow, sensual touch bringing their bodies as closely together as possible. Neither of them wanted sex right now, they wanted, they needed closeness, feel the other without doubt, without anything keeping them apart anymore.

Eventually they settled down, arms around each other, legs entwined, Lorenzo’s face resting in the crook of Andrew’s neck, Andrew’s face buried into Lorenzo’s hair.

Heartbeat against heartbeat.

They both knew they would have to sail through rough waters sometimes. They also knew that things weren’t like before, would never again be. But now they could build something new. Together.


End file.
